


Dream Talk Night Day

by caixa



Series: Real Love [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Realism, Dreams, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, F/M, Family, Flirting, Fluff, Guilt, Injury, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Real Madrid CF, Rooftop Terrace Fluff, Sex, Wales NT (mentioned), Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:31:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caixa/pseuds/caixa
Summary: Since when were dreams considered cheating?
Gareth Bale couldn’t have it better in the beginning of 2016-2017 La Liga season. He does solid work for his club Real Madrid, has two adorable daughters and is engaged to be married.When he has a hot dream about his superstar teammate Cristiano Ronaldo, he is not worried. He might as well discuss the dream with Cristiano himself. Shirtless Cristiano. In a swimming pool, close enough to touch.Because sweet, hardworking, modest family guys don’t end up having affairs with their male coworkers, do they?
------------A story in 6 + 1 chapters.





	1. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet one young expat family whose youngest has sleeping problems. Daddy has a dream of his hot workmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first ever fanfic and probably my first ever attempt to public writing in a foreign language. It's a constant struggle with words and grammar, so please, any help correcting my errors is much appreciated, as are all other kinds of comments (as long as they're not purely hateful).
> 
> All characters are purely fictional. I don't have any knowledge of anyone's parenting choices and nor would they be anybody's business.

It hurt like hell.

The other guy’s boot had hit Gareth’s hip bad. Pain radiated down his thigh, up towards his abdomen, intensifying with the rhythm of his pulse. There was a bruise, sure, he didn’t know what else. He laid on the grass, signaling for help.

Cristiano came to check him out but left it soon to the medical team who helped Gareth to his feet and took him to the side.

It wasn’t all right, but the pain gradually muted down. These things happened in football, first half was nearly up, he’d get rest soon.

“It’s OK, I can continue”, he mumbled. Zidane nodded, didn’t take him out, let him back on the pitch.

 

It was close to midnight when he got home. Team doctor and team physio had checked him, UEFA doctor had checked him, then they had all talked with coaching staff and he had to stick around at Bernabéu through it all.

"Come to training tomorrow morning, we'll see how you are feeling then and go on from there", they had said. He had left with a set of painkillers, thinking that what he had just been told was something he could have figured out himself just as well. He might already be sleeping by now.

At least they had started Champions League with a win.

 

Their house was quiet. He checked on Alba who slept peacefully in her own room and gave her the lightest kiss on her forehead.

Emma was in their bed and sat upright when Gareth entered the bedroom.

"Hi love, you hurt yourself. Is it bad?" she asked worriedly.

Gareth leaned over to kiss her, then laid down next to her.

"I'm not sure. Got kicked with a boot right here, there was a bit of blood but it stopped real soon. Just a bruise, I guess. But yeah, it hurts. I'm on painkillers now, I'll know more when they fade out", he told. "You saw the game?"

"Only a part", Emma sighed. "Alba wanted to watch daddy play but she fell asleep at around 30 minutes. Glad she didn't see you on the ground. I took her to bed at halftime, and then Nava woke up. She cried but stopped when she got milk. Thank God she didn't wake Alba up. I didn't dare to put the TV back on, though. Just followed it on Twitter." She squeezed Gareth's knee. "Glad you won. Sorry I wasn’t there."

  
There was a reason for her to stay home from many of the late night games these days, and it was Nava’s sleeping habits that had gone totally out of control during the Euros and hadn’t really improved since she had discovered new skills and learned to crawl. Although right now Nava was sound asleep in her crib next to their bed, she was a troubled sleeper and it was taking its toll on Emma. Gareth had suggested hiring help, but Emma absolutely refused the idea of a full-time nanny.

"My mum and dad brought me and my brothers and sisters up, your mum and dad did the same with you and your sister. We've talked about this. Normal family life and normal childhood is what we want to give our girls, as normal as we can", she had said, end of discussion.

So they worked around it: flew the eager-to-help grannies and aunts to Madrid whenever they agreed to come, had an occasional babysitter for a couple of hours in the daytime. Gareth took girls for walks or played with them in the garden to give Emma a chance to sleep on his days off.

  
Emma grabbed her phone from the nightstand.

"Check this out", she said and handed Gareth the phone.

There were photos from the match.

Himself on the ground with a pained grimace on his face, medics examining him, Cristiano watching over.

Cristiano with a medical kit, serious face, waving at the crowd.

Himself being helped out of the pitch, Cristiano following with the medical kit, head bowed down.

"Cute, eh?" Emma smiled. "Did he really follow you there? I missed that one if he did."

Gareth smiled and shook his head. "Sorry to shatter that image but no, he just picked the bag up to the side."

"What a shame. There were already some sweet Doc Cris -memes on Twitter and Instagram", she said, glancing at her phone the last time before placing it back to the nightstand. "Ha, he really looked like he was just trying to look down in your shorts."

"I'd rather have you down my shorts", Gareth replied, moving closer.

 

Nava started crying, lifted her little bum up in the crib, trying to get on her wobbly hands and knees, rolled over to her side, crying louder.

"Oh, the timing", Gareth sighed. Emma picked the baby up, placed her on their bed between them, exposed one breast from her nursing tank top and laid down on her side. She pulled the baby closer, Nava nibbled for the breast eyes closed and soon latched on. The soothing magic powers of mama's milk took over and calmed her back to near-sleep.

"She sucked it for half an hour last time. Hope she stops earlier this time", Emma said.

"Take your time, baby girl, but don’t wear your mummy out", Gareth whispered in her daughter's ear. "I'll get you water, Emma."

  
When he came back with the glass, Emma was still nursing. Gareth took his T-shirt and socks off and let his hair down, lazily combing it out with his fingers, shaking tangles open. He slid in the bed, barely able to keep his eyes open, gazing at his fiancée with their baby. He found her motherhood sexy and appealing; the very thought that she had carried two complete human beings inside her body and after that was able to give them all the nourishment they needed filled him constantly with awe and pride.

He twisted in bed for a bit, trying to find the position where the sore hip bothered the least. He finally settled down on his stomach, one knee slightly bent to the side, arms folded to the side, hands under his pillow.

Emma watched his face soften as he drifted into sleep. She liked his long hair that sprawled to all directions on the pillow; it reminded her of a romantic hero character, like someone from Outlander or Poldark. She traced his wide shoulders and strong arms with her eyes, could almost see the bright turquoise physio tape on his lower back. She loved Gareth's lean, hard body; she felt so secure, tiny and loved the way she fit right under his arm when he wrapped it around her shoulders.

She knew how fragile his impressively muscular physique could be. The pale, unmarked skin covered so many traces of past wounds, both physical injuries and emotional insult that the body and mind had had to overcome. He had endured it all, and he would overcome future obstacles as well. He had to. Because, as her body had given life to their children, in the end it was Gareth's body that gave life to their whole family.

 

Nava had finally dozed off again, tiny mouth open. Emma tucked her up in her crib. Maybe she could sleep for a few hours now.

 

_Gareth stood in the tunnel, waiting to walk up to the pitch for the game. Line was forming behind him. He moved his feet restlessly but halted soon, trying to concentrate. Numbness on his injured hip was beginning to fade away, pain returning instead, pulsating with his heartbeat._

_He sensed people starting to move in the line, one behind him coming closer, closer, stopping there, right next to his back. He couldn’t move his feet but he suddenly knew he wasn’t even supposed to. He wasn’t in the game. Neither was the next guy, he realized, as the rest of the line moved past them as if they were invisible. They were alone.The body behind him pressed even nearer to his back, no space between them now, only the thin fabric of their clothes. He felt the warm breath in his hair and neck, body heat through his shirt._

_He couldn’t look back but he didn’t have to, he knew who it was._  
_Cristiano._

_He knew it on two levels at the same time: he just knew it like he sensed everything around him right now, but at the same time he realized that he recognized to the tiniest detail exactly how Cristiano’s body felt against him. It was so leveled with his: mouth at his hairline, chest at his shoulder blades, thighs and legs against his. He had hugged him so close dozens, if not a hundred times; they had competed for balls in close contact for countless hours in practice and international games; he couldn't mistake Cristiano for anyone._

  
_Cristiano let his hand glide on his body, under his arm to the front, reaching for his hip, for the fresh, aching wound. Gareth knew instinctively what he needed to do: he lowered his shorts to bare the sore spot for Cristiano to touch._  
_Cristiano's fingers were warm, almost hot, touch as light as a feather. He caressed Gareth's hip gently, like petting a cat or stroking a child's hair to ease it to sleep. Ache lessened with each stroke, as if Cristiano was peeling off thin layers of pain out of his hip with his healing hand until none was left, only the warm, wide hand resting steadily on his skin._

  
_Cristiano brought his other hand up to Gareth's chest, pulling him closer with both hands. Gareth's own arms hung helplessly down his sides; he tried to reach back to Cris with them, he wanted to grab his ass and pull him closer, but he couldn't. He felt sweet, unfamiliar pressure against his buttocks, he knew what it was and he wanted to feel it, press himself closer to the bulge on Cristiano's shorts. That cock he had never touched, never even thought about it but now it was all he could really think about, it was now growing bigger and harder, right there on his buttcheeks, between them._  
_All he could do was lean back, arch his neck to rest his head on Cristiano's shoulder, as he --_

  
Gareth didn't want to wake up. He squeezed his eyes shut to keep the cruel morning light out and force himself back to sleep, reaching for the remnants of the dream. The intense feeling of another man's body on him was still lingering on his skin, in his head. He wasn't sure if his head felt abnormally light of abnormally heavy.

His sheets were tangled around his feet. He had an erection, which was actually a relief. Sheet under him was dry, at least he hadn't come in his sleep. Was it even close, he didn't know. He hadn't had dreams like that for ages.

  
He dove headfirst under Emma's duvet, kissing her tummy, yanking her pants down, placing little kisses on the soft skin. She let out a soft, muted whimper and peeked down on him. "Ow -- to what do I owe the pleasure?" She whispered.

  
Gareth almost told her about the dream, but decided that as long as the girls stayed asleep, he could put his mouth to a better use.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to give credit to two sensational ongoing fics here. I agonized quite a bit posting this because it has a) a dream sequence, as has Unstoppable by riseup, and b) a healing hands element (albeit it's not real in this fic's context), as has Seven days of Gareth Bale by Rogue1987. 
> 
> I know this may make my work lose some of it's originality, but I hope not all of it.
> 
> Please tell me what you think! As a newcomer in this field I really appreciate all feedback.


	2. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two bros and some locker room banter.  
> It's not flirting if it's a guy, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the support! I’m flattered and relieved and so much more confident with my writing now. This turned a lot easier and so much more fun.
> 
> Hope you like chapter 2.

Gareth’s physical state in the morning did not match his good, almost cheerful mood. The pain on his hip was still there and he felt it more when he stood upright. The longer he stood, the worse it was; soon it was so bad he couldn’t help limping.

Morning sex hadn’t really helped with the injury, but he couldn’t _always_ be expected to sacrifice _everything_ for the sake of football, could he?

 

He certainly felt like the Man of the Match. He had made Emma come, twice. Her first orgasm was a result of some ex-cep-tio-nal coordinated tongue- and lipwork, and to his – in fact, probably their mutual - pleasure the second one had taken over her when he had climbed on top of her for his own quick release.

Well, maybe quick, but he had taken time to support his upper body with his left elbow, lift her sweet soft bum with his right hand, pressing and teasing her other hole with the tip of his middle finger, and suck her fingers wet in his mouth and ask her nicely, please, to work her clit with them, because it was so lovely to see her enjoying herself.

It seemed like it all happened in just seconds, because he was horny as hell and needed very little to simply explode inside her. He had buried his face on her shoulder to not let a sound out, and she bit her teeth into a pillow.

Parents of little children had to be quiet and efficient in so many ways.

 

He called for a driver to get him to the training ground. He had been driven home the night before, he would need to get his car from the stadium somehow.

It wouldn’t be a problem. Nothing was really a problem.

His almost-wet-dream of Cristiano had been one of those dreams that set the mood to last long into the next day. What was the mood actually, how did he feel?

Energetic. Confident. Cheerful. A little bit reckless. Still slightly horny. Nothing to match his bruised hip and pathetic old-man limp of a walk.

 

Team drivers were used to him sitting in silence, so he had time to reflect his dream during the drive. Gareth wouldn’t use the word analyze, because it just sounded a little over-psychologizing it, but he had learned that dreams told him a lot about what was going on in his life, and whenever he remembered a dream in the morning – he seldom did, actually – he took some time taking it apart to bits in his head, just like he would do to his performance in a game.

Maybe analyzing it was the right word after all.

 

He never thought dreams to be complicated symbolism from the hidden unconscious or mystic divine messages. For him, dreams were a part of human mind’s clever file system, a means of organizing, evaluating and displaying information his brain had gathered from various sources throughout the day.

Whatever he had perceived from the outside, whether consciously noticed or simply overlooked, was information. His own emotions, thoughts and physical sensations were also information.

 

He tracked down possible sources for the scene his brain had chosen to play to him last night. Pain was obvious: it was simply the physical sensation he felt in his sleep at that moment. The stadium setting derived quite clearly from the game, too, it was anyway the main event of his previous day.

Healing Cristiano was not hard to figure out, either – it was a result of Emma’s playful mockery of the “Doctor Cristiano” –pictures.

But his own reaction to him – that needed some honest self-study. Surely, he had had a moment of sexual frustration just before going to sleep, when their youngest had interrupted him approaching Emma. Of course wanting sex would creep into the world of dreams, too.

His emotional state was the key here. His dream hadn’t left him confused, only trusting and confident. It told him that the dream wasn’t really about wanting to have sex with his teammate but a reflection of the state their relationship was at the moment.

 

It was good, the best in fact it had been for a couple of years. There was an air of mutual respect, understanding and trust between them. They had a good contact to each other on the pitch; along with sheer skilled professionalism there was a joy of playing.

It had shown in their first goal celebrations of the season; there was nothing forced there, their smiles were genuinely happy because _they_ were genuinely happy working together.

Gareth felt that something had shifted during the last months, half a year maybe. Part of it was shared success winning Real’s 11th Champions League trophy.

Gareth had also a vague feeling that his national team Wales finally qualifying for a major international tournament was also part of it; as irrelevant as it sounded, it had a vibe of having been promoted to a sort of ‘big boys’ league, to a more equal status to Cristiano. It made sense in a way that the Euros had presented him and his country to a wider audience than even Real Madrid had had a chance to do, to the masses that didn’t really pay attention to the sport outside the globally televised and hyped tournaments.

 

It also felt that he and Cristiano could connect better on a personal level these days. It didn’t mean that they would spend time together outside work, but rather that when they were together, it was effortless, free of tension.

He had had a feeling earlier that there were straits to his own personality that Cristiano just didn’t quite get.

 

There was, for instance, Gareth’s quietness. When Gareth was on an upbeat mood, he was chatty and laughed easily, but usually he would rather be the silent spectator. He didn’t have the need to fill space with small talk; to him, silences were not naturally awkward silences. To him, silence equaled comfort.

Cris could deal with the upbeat chitter-chatter Gareth, but not so much with the quiet one. Gareth had often had a feeling that his Portuguese teammate read his silence as hostile or indifferent.

 

These days he didn’t sense that vibe from Cris anymore. It seemed that Cris had, over time, figured his quietness out.

They had both been in the final three (another new promotion to the big boys league for him!) for UEFA’s award for best European footballer of the previous season and had travelled part of the journey to the ceremony together. Gareth wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but it hadn’t bothered his teammate any more than it bothered him.

They shared the silence as they shared the ride, occasionally exchanging a word or two, mostly minding their own business, giving each other encouraging smiles every now and then.

 

Cristiano had won, of course. He had taken good care to praise his runners-up in his speech. It didn’t sound a least bit forced.

Much to his own surprise Gareth shared the gala stage with the winner without feeling half as awkward as he would’ve thought, only mildly nervous.

 

Another thought occurred in Gareth’s mind as he was walking through the gates to Valdebebas. Would Cristiano really care about the success of Gareth’s country or pay attention to Gareth’s awards or nominations? Probably not.

It was his own confidence they were boosting. It wasn’t Cristiano, it was himself, that was the key. All he needed to be comfortable in his relationship to any other person was being at ease with himself.

 

Gareth tried not to limp to the training pitch, but Zidane took one look at him and told him immediately to go to the gym for training and a check-up on his injury. Team physiotherapist would give him instructions to a light restorative workout after consulting the doctor who would check Gareth first.

To his surprise, Cristiano was sent inside with him. He understood the reason when Cristiano greeted him with a cracked voice and broke into a cough. His eyes were bloodshot and watery. With a flu like that most people would have had the sensibility to stay home, but not Cristiano.

 

Gareth’s MRI scan showed that his knock had only affected muscle. It was good news: it would require little else than rest and gentle exercise to keep up the mobility of the joint. Pretty much the same advice was given to Cristiano, only with a little stronger emphasis on the order to rest properly.

“He can do a little work on the exercise bike”, Gareth’s favourite physio guy in the whole world, Jaime Benito, pointed at Cris, ”Then you can both hit the therapy pool for a bit, get the bubbles relax your legs and feet. Don’t skip anything, and more importantly, don’t overdo anything.” With the last words he looked pointedly at Cristiano. “I need to leave early but I trust you. And Gareth, if Cris gets worse, feverish or couching bad, I trust you to get him the fuck out of here, take a hot shower and leave.”

Cris was notorious for hiding his bad conditions and over-working himself, which was not good for a professional athlete in the long run. He had learned to take a bit better care of himself as he had matured over the recent years, but sometimes he forgot it still too easily.

“I promise”, Gareth said. “See you.”

“See you. Take care, both of you.”

 

In the gym Gareth couldn’t help studying Cris curiously when his mate wasn’t looking.

Had he really dreamed his body so accurately, was it so detailed in his memory that his brain could recreate the physical feel of it or had it just been the dream’s reality convincing him?

“Is something wrong? You’re looking at me all funny”, Cris blurted.

Bloody hell, he hadn’t been very subtle after all. Gareth flushed. “No, nothing. Sorry.”

 

But he felt like sharing the dream with somebody. He hadn’t said a word of it at home in the morning, and didn’t really know to whom he would mention something like that.

Except maybe the person in the dream. Would it even be the polite thing to do? Maybe not. But he could give it a try.

 

“I had a dream of you last night.”

An interested twinkle flashed in Cristiano’s brown eyes. “Really? Was it a hot one? Was I good? I mean, how good was it?” he asked, never stopping his pedaling.

“Bugger off Cris, it wasn’t like that.” It was obvious that Cristiano would go to that direction, what was he thinking. What would he say now?

Gareth stood up and walked a bit closer to Cristiano’s bike.

“You were some kind of a healer”, he told. “You know, you placed your hand on the knock on my hip and took the pain off.”

“Wow, I’m Jesus.” Cris replied and tilted his head curiously. “Over your pants or under them?”

“Really, Cris? All right, on the skin.”

He shouldn’t have said anything. The Portuguese guy was, despite his superstar status, an ass. A sex-obsessed ass.

"Are you hitting on me? This is how you try to get me put my hand down your pants?" Cris asked with his cracked voice.

He was having a laugh at it, Gareth could tell. All right, he admitted to himself, it was ridiculous and he wouldn't hesitate to react the same way if anybody would come up to him with something like this.

Gareth laughed back. "Never mind, Cris. Forget it."

 

They let the subject go, went back to the comfortable silence. Or semi-comfortable, this time. Maybe a wee bit irritating, actually.

 

It was Cristiano who brought the dream up again when they were in the pool. The look on his face was emphatic and a little curious when he started talking to Gareth.

“About the thing in your dream… I know this sounds stupid but could we try it out? I mean the hand… on your injury? You know, I don’t believe in that stuff or anything but I just got curious. If it’s ok?” His dark eyes had a serious look, a bit worried of how his mate would take it.

“Why not. But I’m not taking my shorts off.”

“Where is it? How do I… put my hand there?”

They stood facing each other. The water reached them just below the chest level, reflections on the surface distracted the vision. Gareth had to take Cristiano’s hand by the wrist and guide it to the right place.

 

They stood there for a moment. It felt… Really, really silly.

 

Chris let out a small burst of laughter. So did Gareth, relieved by the sense of humour surfacing in the situation.

“This looks like I’m giving you an underwater hand job”, Cris said.

Gareth smiled. “Maybe I wouldn’t mind that.”

Cristiano shrugged, his lips curving a bit. “Who would?”

Gareth shook his head. Oh Cris. _I just invented a drinking game called Cristiano says Cristiano things. That one just earned somebody a shot_ , he thought to himself.

 

Cristiano burst into a violent set of coughing. Gareth realized they should get out. _Or his lips turn all blue and his teeth start to clatter, poor thing, and his cold gets worse and it’s my fault for not taking care of him_.

“Come on, let’s get you to that hot shower.” Gareth said.

“Locker room showers now? Classy. You need to work on your pick-up lines, Gaz. You are just too obvious.”

“Good one Cris. Off we go now”, Gareth said, rushing Cristiano with a pat on his butt. God, what was he thinking? They were practically naked. “First showers, then bed.”

That was so pricelessly bad Cristiano couldn’t even come back at it with anything. The joke was just too obvious. He had to sit down on the poolside floor because he couldn’t really laugh from coughing or cough from laughing.

 

They both missed the next game.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made up a lot of stuff with this one. I don't know if there is a doctor's office with magnetic scan in Valdebebas or a therapy pool with massage showers but I'm assuming for the story there are. If you disagree, then I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Ha! I finally got to use that one!)
> 
> Kudos and comments are most welcome! Thank you for reading sweethearts!


	3. The Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monica: Joey, you had the night!  
> Joey: What?  
> Monica: When two people finally realize their feelings for each other, and-and they talk for hours, and they-they learn all about the other person!  
> (Friends, season 3, episode 22)
> 
> One cute single dad and one grounded family guy have The Night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't got a clue if Toni Kroos likes beer. If he doesn't, sorry about the stereotype.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Keep it cool. Keep it light. Play it safe._

_Homer Simpson repeating to himself: ‘Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts’._

_His heart pounding somewhere up between his ears, because that was where he needed to keep all his blood circulating, not an inch lower._

That was all Gareth Bale could think of after Cristiano Ronaldo asked to… _touch_ him in the warm swimming pool. Since that moment, until he was fully clothed and safely back in his own car on the Santiago Bernabeu stadium parking lot, he had only one focus in life.

He would not, he could not, step out of the pool with a full mast hard-on clearly visible in his wet swimming trunks.

So he took Cristiano’s hand by the wrist and guided it – not exactly on his bruise, a bit more to the outer thigh, a less sensitive spot.

So he stood there, calm, not looking straight at Cris but a little past him, at the cool tiles of the floor, smooth cold surface of the glass windows, keeping his voice light, joking on autopilot.

That autopilot failed him miserably. Why the hell did every single syllable that escaped his mouth say the same thing, only with different words? _Please Cristiano, touch my dick and fuck me_.

Thank God Cris had taken it so light and made fun out of it. He was safe, Cristiano gave him a lift back to his own car, nothing happened. He tended his hip, Cris tended his flu. Both in their own homes, their own lives.

 

They came back to the squad for a couple of dissatisfying draws. Outside the game, the days off had been welcome for wearing out the Cristiano effect, which Gareth had started to call his mixed feelings after his dream. He still kept looking at Cris as little as possible, only when necessary.

Not that he wouldn’t have been tempted to go on with – whatever it was they had been doing. The joking, the banter, playfully trying to outwit the other, yes, but there was more.

In the undertone there was a challenge that _excited_ him. Like sliding a foot little by little over the thin ice to feel if it crackled.

Maybe it would carry and he would just glide over it, all smiling and sunny.

Or then it would crackle and break and he would be in over his head. The water would be unknown and not ice cold but boiling hot.

He shook the thought off quickly.

 

The third game after they had been out was an away Champions League match against a tough German side Borussia Dortmund.

Gareth was a bit worried leaving home. During their previous game against Las Palmas in the Canaries there had been some major trouble with Emma’s relatives back in Wales. Cars had been torched and somebody had even tried to set her aunt’s house on fire over some missing drug money.

Emma had nothing to do with it, Gareth even less. Still they were guarded as possible targets, which felt insane as they lived far across the continent.

Police had patrolled around Real Madrid’s hotel that night. Gareth spent most of the night after the match in his luxurious hotel room alone. He played some skype peek-a-boo with Alba and Nava to keep everything as normal and light for the children as he could. He soothed scared Emma over the phone.

He was dead tired in the morning.

 

Gareth would room with Toni Kroos in Dortmund. Cristiano was next door, alone; the hotel had run out of twin rooms and this time Cris was the lucky one not having to share his sleeping habits with anybody.

The game started out very equal, flowing up and down, situations created on both ends. Cristiano scored the first goal from a pass that Gareth could be really proud of; it was a pretty backheel flicked in a super tight spot, right past the opponent’s defender; a difficult move only the two of them could make look so nice and easy.

Real had the narrow lead until the very end of the first half. It wasn’t nice to leave the pitch the game leveled to 1-1.

 

Cristiano criticized their goalkeeper’s moves to Gareth when they headed down the stairs inside the stadium towards the dressing rooms.

“Keylor should have grabbed it, like this, not let it bounce back”, he ranted like he knew everything.

“Do I need to be the goalkeeper too?” Cris said. “Should you be the goalkeeper too?” Gareth said.

Their words came out in a fuzzy jumble of sound because they talked exactly simultaneously into each other’s mouths. They couldn’t but break up in laughter.

“Oh boy”, Cris said and pulled Gareth into a half-hug, and Gareth threw his arm round Cristiano’s back.

 

The thought flashed through Gareth’s mind like a lightning. How he wanted it: to pull Cris into a tighter embrace once they would reach the bottom of that staircase, waltz him to some dark hidden corner, bury his face in his neck, tickle him with his beard until he’d laugh uncontrollably and scatter kisses all over those ridiculously cute laugh lines he always got down from the corners of his eyes to his tanned cheeks.

Or kiss his mouth hard and rough, force Cristiano's lips open with his tongue, run it along Cristiano's perfect teeth so the surface would breach against them and it would hurt, leaving his tongue so raw sipping hot coffee would burn it for days.

Of course he never did it. Karim and James were right behind them, they all needed to hear their coach’s halftime instructions in the middle of a tight game. He loosened his touch before they reached the dressing room door and let Cris go with a pat in the back as he entered the room before him.

 

The game ended in another dissatisfying draw. This time it was frustrating because Dortmund got their leveling 2-2 goal so very late in the game.

Gareth tried to call home from the bus back to the hotel, but the battery died before Emma answered. He left his phone in the charger on his nightstand and went to get some late night snack from the buffet laid out for them.

Not that many players were there. Toni had apparently sneaked out to a bar to hear and speak some _Deutsch_ and grab a couple of beers; he was always talking about how useless it was to drink beer in Spain, because beer was a delicate, living thing that shouldn’t be consumed farther than within 100 kilometers from the brewery, the nearer the better.

Cristiano was hovering about near the buffet, looking moody. Gareth wished he would come to his table, but apparently he wasn’t going to do that. Cris noticed him and nodded as a greeting, but grabbed some fruit and headed back towards the rooms.

 

Gareth made a quick decision. He left his table, grabbed a water bottle to go and caught Cristiano with a few fast strides.

“Always tough when they level so late, eh? But a point is a point”, Gareth said with empathy in his voice.

“What? Uh-hum”, Cris mumbled as an answer.

They shared a lift ride upstairs in silence. Cristiano gnawed at the insides of his mouth with his teeth, looking pissed. What was eating the man? Gareth wanted to help.

“What’s up, Cristiano? Sorry to say but you look upset. You want to talk about it?” he offered.

Cristiano looked at him tentatively and clearly made up his mind.

“Yeah, thanks. Come to my room.”

 

Cristiano’s hotel room was tiny, not much more than a giant double bed and the usual cabinets. Cris sat himself on the further side of the bed, leaned his back to the headboard and patted the place next to him.

Gareth sat down and waited.

 

“I’m not always sure if I have done it right.”

That was new, Gareth thought. Cris seldom, if ever, questioned his actions.

Cristiano sighed. Whatever was bothering him was clearly something that was difficult for him to talk about.

“With Cristiano… junior.”  
Gareth could have jumped up high from surprise. Instead he let his voice rise.

“What? How could you ever doubt that? I mean, it’s always good to reflect your choices as a parent but… come on, no way! You’re doing an amazing job raising him. He’s a great kid. He adores you and you… you are the best father.”

Gareth simply couldn’t understand where Cristiano was coming from now. His son was the man’s greatest pride, Gareth knew that.

Cristiano swallowed, looking away.

“I mean… should I have let his mother in his life? Give him more of a… family?”

Gareth felt like shaking his mate out of his stupidity.

“Hell, Cris, you made the decision in the beginning, you had your reasons and you’ve always stuck to it. He has a family. You guys have a great family.” Gareth pointed at Cris so furiously he poked him in the chest with his finger. “Saying something like that is just an insult to all one-parent families.”

Cristiano was surprised that Gareth was so fiercely opinionated but it felt nice, it felt reassuring.

Gareth leaned closer to look Cristiano straight in the eye, searching for answers there.

“Cristiano, tell me one thing please. Where is this coming from? I never thought you would have such doubts.”

“It’s just something that came up. I read it somewhere, this stupid headline. It was something about ‘The Michael Jackson of Football’--”, Cris mumbled.

Gareth’s blood boiled again.

“For fuck’s sake, why the hell would you read some internet bullshit like that? Those hateful morons don’t care what they say, they rant shitloads about anybody ‘cos their own lives suck.”

“No, it came up in my publicist’s media report.”

“Shit, that’s even worse”, Gareth answered furiously. “You should fire your media team for not doing their job then. They’re supposed to protect you from that kind of abuse, not rub it in your face.”

A smile had started to rise slowly on Cristiano’s face.

“I like it when you’re like that, Gareth, all fiery for justice. Thanks.”

Gareth smiled back at him. He couldn’t resist it, Cristiano’s smile was infectious, and he was flattered by his words.

“Thanks for telling me. I’m glad you trust me that much.”

“I thought I could trust your judgment. You’re the most grounded family guy I know”, Cristiano said.

 

That notion made Gareth jump upright. "Shit", he exclaimed and jumped out of the bed. "Shit shit shit shit. Don't listen to me, I'm the worst."

He searched frantically for his sandals, kicked his feet in them, noticed they were in the wrong feet and changed them again. "I left my phone in my room. I promised to call home." He looked around the walls for a clock, for the time. "What is it, twelve or one already? Shit."

"What's the panic? Something wrong?" Cris asked.

"No, nothing. I just... I promised", Gareth mumbled, looking around for something, didn't know what, until he patted his pockets and realized he had his keycard on him. He turned back to Cristiano on his way out of the door. "I'll bring my stuff here, if it's OK? I wouldn't want to leave you alone right now, not with... what we talked about."

Cristiano was about to say that he didn't have to, he was alright now, he could go to sleep. But he was thankful that Gareth cared.

"It would be nice", he said and smiled.

 

Toni was in his bed in their dark room when Gareth let himself in.

“Sorry, Toni. I’ll be out. I need to call”, Gareth said, took his phone off the charger, switched it on and stepped outside to talk.

Four unanswered calls from Emma. He was screwed.

It ringed for a long time. Emma answered with a tired voice.

“Sorry baby, my phone went dead. How’s it there?” Gareth asked her.

“It’s shitty, Gareth. Don’t you have a charger? Nava screamed for two straight hours. I tried to call you just to get out of my own head for a minute.”

“I’m sorry, really. Is she any better now?” Gareth asked.

“Well, obviously yes, since she’s quiet.” Emma said and fell into an angry silence that was clearly audible over the phone.

 “Look, I’m sorry. I forgot my phone in the charger. I was hanging out with Cris and --”

Emma interrupted him with an annoyed huff.

“Of course”, she shot, sharp bitterness in her voice. “Well please carry on, laugh your asses off and cuddle all you want. I need to sleep now. I don’t know how long I can do that this time. Thanks for waking me up, Gareth.”

The call was ended.

Gareth was perplexed. What the hell was that about?

He was also tired. It wasn’t always easy for Emma, but she wasn’t always fair with what she wanted from him, either.

He couldn’t be home when he couldn’t be home. He couldn’t be attached to his phone constantly just in case there was some domestic trouble he could only lend his ear to, because he couldn’t be there to sort it out.

He felt tears stinging under his eyelids, hot patches of blush rising on his cheeks. How impossible could it be for him to get anything right?

He went back to his room, grabbed his zip-up sweater from the closet, toilet bag from the nightstand and the backpack from the floor on the side of the bed.

“Good night, Toni. I’m crashing at Cristiano’s”, he whispered.

 

Cristiano answered the door in only his boxer shorts, smelling of toothpaste. Lights were on but dimmed.

He looked worriedly at Gareth.

“What’s wrong now?” Cris asked.

Gareth sat down on the bed. He doubted for a moment if he should talk about his disagreement with Emma to Cristiano, but hadn’t Cris just confided in him? Why couldn’t he.

“Emma lashed out on me on the phone for not answering her calls”, he said.

“Why?” Cris asked.

“What do you mean why? She didn’t like it that she didn’t reach me.”

“I mean, why had she called? Has something happened?”

Gareth shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. She was lonely and pissed. The baby had cried for hours, it just eats you out, I get her.”

“But you can’t do anything to that from here, can you? You can’t cradle a baby over the phone.”

Cristiano had a point, but clearly he hadn’t spent that much time with sleep-deprived mothers whose emotions were seemingly dictated mainly by postnatal and milk-inducing hormones. There was little room for reason there, but a vast need for empathy and love.

Those could be poured on the phone but he had failed that. He was tearing up again.

 

Cristiano didn’t want to see Gareth’s eyes teary and depressed.

He had often admired the expressiveness of the Welshman’s pale blue eyes. They showed perfect focus and determination when he got ready for a free kick but rolled here and there when he was asked silly questions in an interview.

Even their color seemed to change according to Gareth’s mood: they could be sky blue when he was happy or stormy grey when he was miserable. They were like two clear mountain lakes that reflected what was over them, whether it was a clear, sunny sky or dark clouds of a roaring thunderstorm.

Cristiano wanted to wipe the clouds off the blue sky.

 

“Come here”, he said, shifting himself on the bed closer to Gareth, until he sat on his knees right next to him and could close his arms around him. He pressed Gareth’s head gently on his shoulder and stroked his hair.

“You’re the greatest. She’ll remember that in the morning when she’s had some sleep and say she is sorry”, Cris said.

“I hurt her feelings”, Gareth sobbed.

Cristiano lifted his chin and looked deep into Gareth’s eyes. “She hurt yours.”

 

Gareth sat silent and wiped his eyes with the back of his large hand like a little boy.

Cristiano made his decision.

“Come on”, he said, standing up and pulling Gareth up with both hands. “You need air.”

“Are we going out?” Gareth asked.

“I saw a sign to a rooftop terrace in the stairs. If it’s locked, we’ll kick the door out.”

Gareth looked up and down on Cristiano’s body. The display of tanned skin and toned muscle was impressive, but not really right for north European night air in september. “You need to get dressed”, he said, pulling his sweater over his usual white V-neck T-shirt.

Cristiano opened the closet, took out a fluffy white hotel bathrobe and wrapped it around himself.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” Gareth asked.

Cristiano took a thick grey oversize beanie hat from the shelf of the cabinet and pulled it on his head.

“Now it is”, he said.

Gareth saw their reflection in the mirror on the room door. He was in his black sweatpants and white zipped-up sweater, white sports socks and ugly shower sandals on his feet. Cristiano was barefoot in his bathrobe-and-beanie attire.

“We look utterly stupid”, he laughed.

“No. We look the hottest”, Cristiano said, put a key card in his robe pocket and guided Gareth out of the room with his hand on his back.

 

The terrace door was two flights of stairs up and fortunately unlocked. The men stepped on the roof. It was dark, a lonely green escape light lighting a spot around the door, otherwise light crept out only from the lamps in the staircase, through the glass door. A light breeze cooled the surprisingly warm midnight air.

Cristiano took Gareth by the hand and took him next to the railing. They looked over the silhouette of the town; the nearest blocks showed mostly rooftops, their hotel was the tallest building in the nearest neighbourhood.

“We should do the Titanic”, Cristiano suggested.

“No!”

“Why not?”

“It would be stupid”, Gareth said.

“You need stupid”, Cristiano answered and stepped behind Gareth. “Come on, you are Rose. You have longer hair.”

Gareth chuckled. “But you have a dress. And diamonds.”

The railing was solid stone; they could not step any higher. Cristiano still spread Gareth’s arms to the sides and leaned their bodies outwards.

“Stop!” Gareth shouted as he looked straight down to the ground. Sometimes he got a little uncomfortable with heights.

 

Cris let him go. Gareth gazed up to the sky and walked lazily to one of the sunbeds scattered on the terrace. He leaned himself down on it.

Cristiano followed suit on the next one.

“Do you know any stars?” Gareth asked.           

Cris looked at him. “I know you”, he said.

“No, I mean the sky. My mum always tried to teach them to me but it never stuck”, Gareth told. “And I never learned anything at school. My brain just froze in classrooms. I only wanted to get out and play”, he said.

Cristiano looked at the sky above them.

“It looks off, like it’s in a wrong position. This is so far north. And east”, he said.

“From Madrid?”

“No, from home. I mean Madeira. It’s the only place where I ever look at the stars. It was so dark there in the night when I was a kid, very little streetlights, the stars just… exploded, like fireworks”, Cristiano gestured with his hands. “Since then I only lived in big cities, and there’s always so much light and so much happening on the ground level. I forget they even are there”, he told, looking up, pointing at the starry sky.

He extended his hand towards Gareth’s sunbed. Gareth reached for it, taking Cristiano’s fingertips between his own, grazing them idly with his thumb.

It felt nice. They were so far apart they didn't even hold hands properly, but a warm electric current flowed nonetheless between them through the lightest touch of their fingers.

Cristiano's head was nodding sleepily, his hand was slowly weighing down out of Gareth's. Before it dropped completely, Gareth felt Cris jolt with a sudden shiver.

“You’ll get cold”, Gareth said and pulled Cristiano up with his both hands.

When they turned to leave, Cristiano put his hand on Gareth’s waist. Gareth wrapped his arm over Cristiano’s shoulder. He slid his long, narrow fingers under his beanie and rubbed gentle circles on the back of his head.

Cristiano leaned his head back to enjoy the touch as they walked back in. They squeezed sideways through the narrow door to avoid letting each other go.

                                                                       

Gareth changed his sweatpants to shorts and slid in the bed wearing them and a t-shirt. He took his hair down, placing the elastic band on the nightstand. He turned to his side, facing Cris.

Cristiano ran his hand through a strand of Gareth's long hair.

“I used to think you were stupid to grow your hair out but I was wrong. It suits you.”

Gareth smiled. He folded his hands under his cheek and said sleepily: “I really wanted to kiss you tonight.”

“When? Up on the roof?” Cristiano asked.

“No, earlier. At halftime, in the stairs.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t the right place”, Gareth said.

“Is this better?” Cristiano asked. He brought his face slowly nearer to Gareth’s.

Gareth let his open lips melt gently on Cristiano’s and kissed him slowly, taking his time, inhaling and feeling and tasting every detail of Cristiano’s mouth. He had no need to hurt himself now; he knew he would still be feeling this for days.

 

Gareth’s beard and moustache had coarser and softer hair. The way his facial hair both caressed and scratched Cristiano’s skin excited him, it was like a promise of what Gareth could be like.

He was surprised with how naturally Gareth had been coming on to him these past weeks. He wondered what the case with his Welsh teammate really was. Had he always been into both sexes, did he just have a crush on him, had he suddenly just got a zing of bi-curiosity or was he one of those miserable closet-gay daddies there still were all around the world? He wanted to find out.

He might as well ask.

 

They parted slowly from the kiss, leaning their heads back to their pillows, still facing each other.

“Have you ever been with a guy?” Cristiano asked. Gareth shook his head on the pillow never taking his sincere eyes off Cristiano’s. “No.”

“Really? I’ve seen how you look at that blond defender, your Wales number 2. You’re always all over each other”, Cristiano teased. He didn’t even know why he was poking at Gareth like that, his “no” was most likely the whole truth.

Gareth laughed wholeheartedly. “Chris Gunter? No. He’s like a kid brother.” He rolled on his back, looking pensively into the thin air, smiling as much inwards as outwards. “No, actually, Chris would be my twin. Aaron would be the little brother, he’s younger. They are better friends with each other than me, though. Did you know they even shared a flat? That was back when we all played in London. We were so young, not even twenty.”

It was fascinating to watch Gareth’s face when he rambled about his memories like that. Cris told him that.

“You look like you really love them”, he said.

Gareth wriggled slowly on his back, shifting a bit on the bed, smiled at Cris and continued.

“It’s just different, you know? I mean Real Madrid is the greatest club in the world, I love it to death here, obviously, but… It’s like it’s the greatest job in the world but... yes, it's a job. It’s work. Wales is …it’s _Wales_. Yeah, I love them all so much.”

Gareth sighed. “And they love us so much there. It’s uncanny. It’s an honour but it’s… a bit of a pressure too. It’s like people think we’ve already qualified, and if we fall short in this campaign, they will be so disappointed.”

“Just don’t fear it”, Cristiano said. “You’ll be fine.”

“Easy for you to say, champion”, Gareth replied.

“No”, Chris said. “It’s the same for all of us. It’s always a new game.”

 

They laid there silent for a moment, Gareth on his back, Cris on his side, leaning on his elbow.

“So you never even fooled around with a guy? Even in the academy? Many boys experiment when they’re first out of home, see what they like.”

Shit Cris was stubborn. The idea sounded ridiculous to Gareth.

“I was just into football and girls when I was that age. Then I met one and we’re still together”, he said, shrugging just as much as one can when lying flat. “I’m really boring that way.” He smiled at Cris.

“There’s nothing boring about you, Bale. What are you into now?”

A new smile emerged on Gareth’s face, the one he always had when he was about to say something he thought himself to be extremely hilarious.

“Football and golf”, he said and laughed out loud.

“Seriously, Cris”, he continued, “I know you’re trying to figure me out. But I can’t give you an answer. I just don’t get labels. People can call themselves whatever they want but I don’t believe in straight and gay. I can’t spot the difference. People love who they love. People can have sex in so many ways or not at all.”

"Which do you prefer?" Cristiano asked.

"What?"

"So many ways or not at all?"

Gareth's eyes flashed, he smiled and winked. "Wouldn't you want to find out."

It made Cristiano's stomach tumble.

Gareth turned serious, paused for a moment, fixed his eyes at Cristiano.

“I’m not asking you about your history, if you don't mind", he said. "I’d rather not picture you with anybody.”

 

The confession in Gareth’s words overwhelmed Cris. He leaned down, devoured Gareth with his lips, hand grasping Gareth’s cheek, his whole mouth on his. The kiss was rough, it was hungry. Gareth answered it just as eagerly, like he was trying to take in and express every desire he had and wished for in that one moment, in that one kiss. He moaned them into his mouth, that low sound vibrating in Cristiano’s body.

Cristiano moved his hand from Gareth’s cheek down to his shoulder, further down, reaching for the hem of his T-shirt to feel his skin. He shifted his position closer, pressing his chest down on Gareth’s.

Gareth detached himself from the kiss, pushed the front of Cristiano’s shoulder with his hand, startled sadness in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, please stop. This is too fast. I need time. I’m sorry.” He lifted his hand on Cristiano’s cheek.

Cristiano kissed Gareth’s forehead and lowered himself back on his pillow.

“It’s OK. Don’t be sorry.” He stroked Gareth’s hair and cheek. “You sweet thing.”

 

They said their goodnights, Cris turned down the light.

Gareth was half asleep when he heard Cris slide out of the bed and lock himself in the bathroom. The muffled sounds through the door painted an exact picture of what he was doing in there.

Gareth couldn’t blame him. He was just as hard himself. But he would try to sleep it off.

 

 _Is this a lasting treasure  
_ _or just a moment’s pleasure  
_ _can I believe the magic of your sighs  
_ _will you still love me tomorrow?_

_(Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Will You Love Me Tomorrow)_

The world had seen enough @cristiano’s pillow selfies to know how glowing he looked right after waking up.

Now he was still asleep. His face was half buried in the pillow, nose pressed almost flat against it. The famous hair was tousled, a stubborn curl or two glued to the temple of his head. His mouth hung open, there was a small moist spot under it on the pillowcase.

He looked breathtakingly gorgeous.

Gareth eyed at him fondly until he really had to go to the toilet.

 

He was washing his hands when Cristiano entered the bathroom. Their eyes met in the mirror when Cristiano hugged him from behind and landed his jaw on his shoulder.

“Good morning, starshine”, he hummed in Gareth’s ear and kissed him on the cheek, his eyes looking all the time in the mirror.

“You should look at me when you kiss me”, Gareth complained. “That looks like you’d be kissing Ballon D’Or for the cameras.”

“You’re warmer. And softer. And hairier.” Cristiano gave another kiss after each word. “And I was looking at you. At us.”

Gareth leaned his cheek against Cristiano’s. Touching him came naturally. It was so easy just to be there, so comfortable.

Too comfortable. They could not be like this all the time. He pulled out a bit, reluctantly, and dried his hands with a towel.

“We need to talk”, he said to Cristiano and led him by the hand back to the room.

 

They sat on the bed. Cristiano’s bed. Their bed. Gareth took Cristiano’s both hands to his, looked down at them and lifted his serious eyes back up to meet Cristiano’s.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Cristiano was silent for a moment, gazing around the room, looking for words. He turned back to Gareth with an expression that was a mixture of a happy, reassuring smile and emphatic, serious eyes and answered simply: “Not bad.”

Gareth sighed. “I don’t know what’s happening any more. I don’t know what to do.”

Cristiano nodded but said nothing, looking back at Gareth, waiting for him to go on.

“I want my life to go on like it was before. But I’m not what I was before. We didn’t go any further but… I’m still not the same as I used to be. Please tell me I’m not crazy. That I’m not making this bigger than it is. Or tell me I am making this bigger than it is. That it’s nothing and I have nothing to worry about when I go back home or down to that bloody breakfast room with the rest of the squad, because everything will be normal and nothing happened.”

Cristiano waited for him to stop. “What do you want, Gareth?” he finally asked.

“What do you want?” he asked back.

 

Neither of them had a clue. Until they had, they’d have to try and act as if nothing had changed. It was the only way to go on, to survive, take it step by step, adapt as life unfolded itself.

Step one was not to go to the breakfast together. Gareth found a seat in one end of a big, full table, across from Toni, next to Marcelo. Cris found his way to the other end good fifteen minutes later, when Gareth was forking down the last bits of his eggs.

Marcelo was finishing his last cup of coffee, browsing through some after-match social media on his phone. He suddenly left out a chuckle.

“Look”, he said, handing Gareth his device.

Miniature Gareth and miniature Cristiano walked down the stairs in an animated gif displayed on the screen, laughed and hugged, over and over again.

A warm smile lit up Gareth’s face like the sun.

 

Toni watched his teammate who stared at Marcelo’s phone. He had seen Gareth’s face exactly like that before. It was not long ago, when old pictures of Gareth playing with Alba after Wales’ match against North Ireland had shown up on his Twitter feed and he had turned the phone so Gareth could see them.

When Gareth had looked at them, he had clearly looked through them into a happy memory, a moment that had meant a lot to him. It was a look of love.

It didn’t get any better when Cristiano stood up from his end of the table and walked past them to get another glass of water. Toni saw him letting the back of his hand graze, like accidentally, across Gareth’s shoulders as he passed behind his chair.

It still could have passed as nothing if Cristiano hadn’t touched Gareth’s hair lightly on his way back. Gareth pushed his head to the touch like a pleased cat and followed Cristiano with his gaze before he snapped out of it and continued shoveling food in his wide mouth.

The touches and glances took only split seconds but they were acted right in front of Toni’s face. So had it been with Gareth’s erratic behavior in the night: he had come in their room to get his phone in a hurry, cheeks burning red, stepped out for some minutes, come back even redder, grabbed his backpack and toilet bag and mumbled about crashing with Cristiano.

And this morning he had come down to breakfast all starry-eyed.

Toni prayed he was jumping to conclusions.

If he wasn’t, two of their club’s key players were speeding headfirst towards something that couldn’t be anything but a disaster.

And Toni himself would have a hard time taking his kids to playdates in the Bale-Rhys-Jones-household. He didn’t want to look Emma in the eye and pretend everything was fine.

He quickly regretted the thought. Alba and Leon had done nothing wrong and it would be utterly wrong to punish them for their parent’s actions. If there had even been any action, and even if there had, there was no knowledge it would be a problem, he reminded himself.

Toni certainly hoped he was wrong. Until he knew for sure, he would act blind, train and play like nothing odd had been going on.

 

Coming home was like sleepwalking into an unknown place, Gareth thought. Everything looked the same as before, but inside him everything had been shifted, rearranged.

He was so grateful to Alba who snapped him back to reality.

“Daddy daddy daddy! Did you bring me anything?” she asked.

Gareth lifted her up on one arm, hugged and kissed her, put her back down and handed her a small gift bag from behind his back. Alba dug out a children’s book with the name _Peppa Wutz_ on the cover. A fan had handed it over to Gareth in the airport, saying “for your daughter”.

“It’s Peppa the Pig in German. You can ask Leon's mum or dad what it means when we see them”, Gareth told her.

 

Emma hugged him close. “I’m so sorry” were her first words after Alba had gone to leaf through her present.

He couldn’t understand what he was hearing. What could she have to apologize for?

“I shouldn’t have lashed out on you like that. I was so sleep-deprived, Nava was crying and I felt all alone”, Emma said.

Gareth felt guilt gather in a knot in his chest, it weighed him down like a dull clump of metal.

“Then I started breastfeeding her and flicked through the channels… some stupid news show was playing on and on again this stupid five-second video of Cristiano explaining something to you over halftime and you laughing at each other’s faces, they went on and on over-analyzing it.”

Gareth remembered his thoughts in that staircase. What he had wanted to do and how much he wanted it. How he had told it to Cristiano later. How he had responded.

Emma went on. “I should be so glad that things are like they are now with the club, and I really am. Fans value you for what you are, what you deserve, you get along with all the players. I would never want to change it back to what it was back then, you know.”

Gareth felt Cristiano on his skin, tasted him in his mouth. His fingertips remembered the softness of Cristiano’s close-cut hair, the velvety scalp under his oversize beanie in the night breeze on the hotel rooftop. His lips remembered the kisses, long and tender, hungry and demanding. Was it really just a kiss? It was more like making love with the only part of their bodies they dared to touch in order to maintain the last bit of control, to keep from falling off the edge of reason.

“Can you forgive me, Gareth?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, tell me, what do you think? Do you love them for being too cute or hate them for being lowlife cheaters?
> 
> Or do you want to beat them up for wasting all that time on that big bed of theirs not doing IT? Don't worry, they will have their chance. Chances. Erm. Lots of them. smh. Trouble.
> 
> I'm exhausted after writing this. May take days to get the next one written.  
> And it will be the last one, sigh. I miss them already.
> 
> Thank you all wonderful people for reading! I really appreciate all comments and kudos.


	4. The Day, part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They should do the right thing, but they want the wrong thing more.  
> So that’s what they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what’s the line between mature and explicit content but changed the rating just in case. Consider yourselves warned.

 

Portugal bulldozed over their second and third World Cup qualification opponents. Cristiano Ronaldo scored a jaw-dropping number of four goals in one game.

Gareth texted his congratulations to Cristiano gritting his teeth, because he was a bit envious and gutted when Wales had had to fight to reach tight draws in their respective games.

 _4 is nothing when I get my hands on you_ , Cristiano replied.

 

Things had been left somewhat heated between them before the international break.

Cris had texted Gareth the same night they came back from Germany.

_I miss you. Call me._

He had taken the call in the back garden, walking slowly around, feeling his body tingle at the sound of Cristiano’s low voice in his ear. He wanted Gareth to come round his house, right away.

Every cell in Gareth’s body screamed “GO!” but he told he couldn’t, he had just been away from home, he had to stay, shooting off suddenly wouldn’t be like him.

“When can I see you? How much earlier can you come to practice tomorrow?” Cristiano asked.

Gareth calculated in his head. “45 minutes.”

“Meet me at the parking lot.”

 

Gareth was there an hour early. Five minutes later, Cristiano drove in.

He stepped out of his car, stunning as ever in his faded jeans, soft grey t-shirt and sunglasses. He smiled as he approached Gareth.

Gareth figured his sizeable Audi had generous headroom and darkened windows for a reason. He opened the nearest door and part guided, part pushed Cristiano to the backseat. He wiggled himself in, straddled Cristiano’s lap and lifted his sunglasses from his face to the rear window.

He wrapped his arms around his neck, looked in his hazel brown eyes and said “Good morning”.

“It’s good now”, Cristiano answered. He buried his hands in Gareth’s back pockets, strong fingers cupping his ass through the denim. Nice, strong grip; Gareth felt possessed and he liked it.

“I like you touching me like that”, he said leaning closer to Cristiano’s face, one hand on his jawline, grazing that perfect lower lip with his thumb.

It was so soft and beautiful. He could hardly believe he was near enough to feel it.

He tilted his head a bit to get the right angle and brought his face even closer, almost close enough for their lips to touch. He wanted to enjoy that slow anticipation, only Cristiano’s breath on his skin.

 

Gareth’s tongue was just as long and dexterous as his limbs. He used it to press Cristiano’s mouth open, licked the inseam of Cristiano’s lips with its tip, let it snake its way inside his mouth, lips still not even completely touching.

Cristiano moved his hands from Gareth’s pockets to his thighs, breathed heavily. He sat absolutely still, let Gareth make his slow, wet, slithering move, his sensational tongue and sweet hot breath in his mouth.

Until their lips locked together and it was a dance of twirling and searching tongues, biting teeth, nibbling, pushing, grinding and whispering lips.

“I’m so mad at you for not coming over last night”, Cristiano whispered under his panting breath between the kisses.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Gareth answered.

He spread his straddled thighs as wide as they reached and arched his back to press his groin tighter down on Cristiano’s lap. It gave such a sweet promising pressure to his hardening cock; he felt his balls tighten against the stretched denim fabric, Cristiano’s hand making its way up the back of his thigh exactly towards the right spot, guided by the seams of his jeans.

That hand on his ass, between his buttocks, teasing his balls, the root of his cock. How he liked it, pressed himself back and down to feel it, closer, tighter, stronger. “Never stop touching me, Cris”, he pleaded, half whispering, half moaning.

How could Gareth be enjoying something so little so tremendously? His sighs of pleasure flattered Cristiano’s ears.

“You’re so easy and hot on me, Welsh boy”, he whispered, breath hot on Gareth’s ear.

“Yes I am”, Gareth said and sealed his confession with drowning his mouth in another kiss.

 

He slid his hands under Cristiano’s shirt, letting his fingers enjoy every square inch of the silky skin as they wandered slowly upwards. Feeling Cristiano’s hard abs tremble slightly under his hands made him shiver. He would never ever have dreamed that merely touching another man could make him feel like this, that he could want to get his hands, his body on someone so badly.

Gareth clawed Cristiano’s chest with his fingernails, rested his thumbs on his nipples, rubbing and teasing. He felt Cristiano gasp, pulled his head back from his lips just enough to see his eyes meeting his own, lips open, tip of the pink tongue touching his lower teeth. “Do you like it?” Cris nodded. “Want it harder?” Cris nodded again. Gareth pinched the nipples between his two fingers, letting his other fingernails sink in Cristiano’s pecs, grinding his hips down, riding.

Cris tucked his fingers in Gareth’s hair, grabbed a fistful and pulled him back into a kiss, this time almost violently fierce, hard, sucking and biting Gareth’s lips.

 

There had already been distant sounds of car engines arriving somewhere around them, turned down, doors being clicked open and slammed shut.

The training session. Oh. Right. There was actually another reason they had come there, not just for each other. Damn.

And just how close had those other cars been parked?

Gareth slid down from Cristiano’s lap to another seat and peaked cautiously out the window. No one next to them, at least.

Cristiano took a deep breath through his nose, then exhaled slowly blowing air out from between his lips, cooling down.

“You have to come home with me after this”, Cristiano said to Gareth.

Gareth had to gather all his strength to decline. No. It would be so good, but it would be so dangerous.

 

Zidane could not be very happy with the form of his players that morning.

Luka Modric was injured. James Rodríguez was injured, and Colombia still wanted him to fly halfway across the globe for their qualification games.

Even as hard workers as Bale and Ronaldo had come in barely in time (weird, he thought he had seen their cars parked outside when he had arrived himself) and acted distracted.

This wasn’t promising at all. He could only hope everybody would come back stronger after the international break.

 

_4 is nothing when I get my hands on you._

Christ, was Gareth in trouble. Cristiano’s hands on him, there was nothing he wanted more. But even though he was a wreck with his own _and_ Cristiano’s desires, he saw too great risks everywhere.

Cristiano’s house was a no-go. Cameras were pointed at the mansion day and night. Cristiano himself had made a point in a press conference only a couple of months ago that he didn’t need to be personal friends with his BBC attacking line teammates, specifically saying that it wasn’t a problem that Bale didn’t come over to his house.

What would it look to the public if that turned around all of a sudden? It would only draw attention to them and send the entertainment gossip columns that used to, somewhere in history, be called sports journalism into a frenzy of speculation.

It would probably be speculation where their new-found friendship would be read as a PR stunt or a political move to confuse and psych-out rival La Liga clubs with maybe a few kind and laddish ‘bromance’-notions, but chances were that other kind of rumours would start circulating as well.

 

His own house was a pure impossibility. For one thing, when he was home, his family usually was, too. They were a close-knit little unit and Gareth had always cherished that, been proud of it.

For another thing, he knew his guilt would kill him if he fucked another person in their bed. Or even any of the guest bedrooms. Cristiano’s presence would haunt the house permanently.

And while the media coverage around their life was a miniscule fraction of the attention Cristiano Ronaldo bathed in, Gareth Bale wasn’t exactly a nobody in Madrid, either. Chances were that Cristiano’s visits to him wouldn’t go unnoticed any more than his stepping inside Cristiano’s gates.

 

Long story short, he was scared stiff of getting caught and he felt bad about it. He felt bad because he knew how frustrating it was to Cristiano.

Cris was sweet, he never blamed Gareth for his chickenshit cowardness. Quite the contrary, he never stopped suggesting new ideas.

Hotel? No, never discreet enough.

“When my jet is repaired, I’ll tell the pilot to circulate over Spain when I fuck you senseless”, Cristiano murmured on his aroused voice close to his ear. Gareth had to gasp for breath.

It was actually a plausible and somewhat tantalizing idea, but not a possibility at the moment, since the plane had been crash landed recently when it had been leased out. Besides, Gareth was worried that something would require him to get home in the middle of everything. It would be easier if they stayed on the ground.

And there was the thing with the global warming, too. Burning all that kerosene in the sky just for their pleasure? Like there weren’t already enough issues to feel guilty about.

One thing was, anyway, out of the question. It was backing away from the road they had stepped on. The thing was simple and plain: they were in love and they were in heat.

And Cristiano was determined to get Gareth in bed. There wasn’t much to be said after that. ‘Cristiano was determined’ pretty much defined itself; it had the means and the end in one sentence.

 

Sneaking around like thieves had already become a habit. They knew how to hide away in dead angles from security cameras for stealing kisses, talked about their feelings and plans when walking casually to their cars or dressing rooms, seemingly only making some light small talk.

During one of these walks Cristiano told he had an unused rental apartment. It was a small studio in a big block, currently between tenants, as he put it.

“I had to kick the latest one out. He didn’t pay the rent for months and when he got the eviction, he tried to steal stuff and broke the fridge. I can’t let it out now because it still has no fridge, we haven’t found one because it’s not standard size, but we’ve had the place redone and it’s furnished with good stuff, no IKEA shit”, Cristiano told.

"Who are 'we'?"  Gareth asked.

 _This is just too precious_ , Cristiano thought. _Jealous little Gareth, picking the main thing out of the conversation._

He shook it off with his hand.

"I own it through a company, my accountant is the CEO", he explained.

The best thing about the place was that it could be reached from two different streets. There was the main entrance, but on the opposite side of the block there was another door in the end of a long corridor surrounded by various small businesses: hair and nail salons, a barbershop, a couple of small shops, a dentist’s office. Good place to walk through unnoticed.

“I know it’s not much. If it sounds cheap and sleazy, we’ll figure out something else”, Cristiano said.

“No, it sounds wonderful”, Gareth said without sounding very convincing.

“You’re the one who wants it like this”, Cris reminded him sharply. ”If you wanted to come to my place, if you wanted to check in a honeymoon suite, I would have no problem. It’s you who’s worried about the risk.”

Gareth could see Cristiano swallow like he had a bitter taste in his mouth. He avoided Gareth’s eyes and looked to the side. _He is accusing me of thinking he’s not worth the risk,_ Gareth thought. _What am I doing, I’m only hurting us both. Everyone._

But he needed it. If Cristiano’s rental studio apartment was the way, it was the way.

“Stop it. Please. Don’t make me feel awful.” Gareth said. “I mean, really, it sounds perfect. Thank you.”

It was the sneaking around, hiding and lying he hated. And forcing someone as energetic, open and honest as Cristiano to sneak around, hide and lie was even worse.

 _I’m hurting everyone_.

Like it mattered.

 

 

Cristiano was never late from anywhere.

Except for now, of course.  His mother had been delayed and he couldn’t leave Junior alone. He tried to call Gareth and texted the estimated time he’d get to the flat, but got no answer.

He drove as fast as he dared, being stopped by the traffic police would be hell right now. He parked the car and ran.

The lift seemed to come down forever. Still faster than running to the 7th floor, he thought.

Once he reached the right floor he saw Gareth standing near the apartment door. He leaned against the wall, greyish jeans covering his long legs, head buried deep in a white hoodie. Cris got a glimpse of his face: dark shadows under his brows, eyes, under his cheekbones, under his full lips.

It was an anxious face, look of a strung-out junkie waiting for his dealer or opening of the methadone clinic.

That only lasted a second. Gareth heard his footsteps, lifted his head and greeted him with a sunny smile.

“I’m so sorry I was late”, Cris said and let them in.

 

Gareth unzipped his hoodie and threw it on the floor as soon as Cris pulled the door shut behind them. He took Cristiano by both of his wrists and pulled him close, thrusting his hips at him.

He let go one of Cristiano’s hands and took the other one down to his crotch. “See how hard you make me. Just waiting for you, just thinking about you.”

Cristiano loved him like that. So hungry and needy for him, so totally uninterested in covering his desires in any way, going for what he wanted with completely straight-out approach. He cupped his hand mercifully over Gareth’s hard-on, rubbing and kneading the caged cock. His other hand went to the back of his head, tugging the hair loose, pulling Gareth to a kiss.

Outside football Gareth was easy in the nicest meaning of the word. No fuss, no need to play games or make the other person guess for his intentions.

So easy to keep kissing and walk over to the bed.

 

Cristiano had paid the flat a quick check-up visit the previous day. He had opened the windows to let in some fresh air, ran water from taps and flushed the toilet to make sure everything was fresh and working. He had brought some bottles of water to the small kitchen area, toilet paper and towels to the bathroom.

Lube and condoms to the nightstand by the bed.

The latter had made him a bit uneasy. Was it rude, blunt and unromantic to be so prepared?

 

No. The foolish choice would have been to come unprepared, since now was no time for stopping. Gareth had already unbuttoned Cristiano’s shirt (really, nobody had that fast and deft fingers!) and unbuckled his belt, Cristiano had shaken the shirt off his shoulders and was kicking his trousers down on the floor. Gareth had let Cris pull his T-shirt over his head and open his jeans (which was lovely, because the button fly was really killing him) and was wiggling out of them like a snake shedding his skin.

Underwear had to go, too. Because, now, please. Gareth was on his back on the bed, as hot as he had ever been, hair sprawling to all directions, legs spread wide, wanting Cris to touch his ass, Cris on top of him, his hand, his fingers going where Gareth wanted them, kissing his lips, biting his neck, just enough for the teeth to scrape but not sink into his skin, thank you for being so thoughtful, not leaving marks on a man who’s having his family back home from Wales tomorrow.

Gareth opened his blue blue eyes, looked straight to Cristiano, locking his gaze.

“I want you inside me”, he said, his voice as quiet as it was sure.

Cristiano nodded, kissed his lips, reached for the tube and the little wrappers on the nightstand drawer.

He squeezed a generous amount of lube on his hand and leaned down to kiss Gareth gently as he reached down between his legs to massage the rim of his hole with his slippery fingers. Gareth gasped, moved himself to his fingers, undulating, wanting, softening. It was easy to slide one finger in, after a while another one.

Then press and twist and move them. Press deeper. Feel Gareth start fucking himself onto them, down to the knuckle, asking please, please. Sweet Welsh no-fuss easy boy.

Cristiano sat up to unwrap a condom, rolled it on, had Gareth help him with his beautiful wiry hands to cover it all over with lube. Gareth slid his hands on the rock hard cock, mesmerized by the feel of it in his hands, a little bit uncertain right now if he really could take it all in. But not uttering a word about it, never backing down from something he knew he wanted.

Now. Gareth rolled over on his stomach and lifted his hips. Cris aligned himself right, tested the way with his thumb, started to slide in, slowly, rubbing the nape of Gareth’s neck with a firm hold to make him feel secure and easy. When he heard discomfort in Gareth’s breath, he paused, only to hear a grunt “go on”. So he pushed on in, centimeter at a time, until he felt Gareth pushing back at him and heard his breath turn easy at first, then heavy with lust and pleasure.

Cris pulled Gareth with him in a sitting position on the bed, his knees folded under him, Gareth in his lap, back to his chest. He encouraged Gareth to ride him, wanted him to control the pace for a minute, to find a rhythm that would please him the most. He held him balanced with one hand on his chest and wrapped another around the shaft of Gareth’s cock, letting it slide up and down just like Gareth moved up and down on him.

 

Gareth stretched and arched and moaned on Cristiano’s lap, thrusting back and forth, wanting more of both, muscled thighs nearly shaking. To have this beautiful strong man lose himself in pleasure made Cris feel proud and powerful.

“Please Cris, put me down and fuck me hard”, he panted.

Oh heaven. Cristiano did it with pleasure.

He laid the man down under him, lifted his ass just enough to slide his hand under the body to stimulate his cock, fingers over its plum-like marble hard head, getting slippery and moist with precum, around the crevice just behind it, moving back and forth.

Until he had to let it go, focus on nothing but pounding into Gareth, feeling that tight ass around his cock, firm buttocks slamming against his pelvis, the gift to his ears that was Gareth grunting and wailing, moaning and shouting. Under him, for him, because of him.

He came hard, shaking. For a moment his knees refused to work like they had turned liquid, to jelly. He would have wanted to rest there for hours but rolled over down when he was still able to keep the condom with him.

Gareth’s own personal volcano had erupted on the sheets. He turned his face to Cris, looked at him with a smile that just widened and widened.

Until he couldn’t help himself but rolled onto his back, lifted both of his fists in the air, threw his head back and let out a roar of pure exhilaration, wide mouth full of white teeth.

Then he rolled back, wrapping himself over Cristiano, saying things that came out in an unintelligible jumble of words.

If Cris could have focused on listening from his own happiness, he might have distinguished words such as: “Oh god fuck I never you don’t believe Cris oh fuck god I love you”.

Luckily, sometimes the exact words are not needed to get the message delivered.

 

“How long can you stay today?” Gareth asked.

Cristiano told he could call his mother to stay long enough to put his son to bed, but he wanted to be home before morning to be there if he woke up in the middle of the night.

Gareth could understand that.

“I told you you are the best father”, he said.

 

Cristiano realized he was terribly hungry. Gareth was most likely too.

Cris showered quickly, looked around for nearby restaurants on his phone, ordered some takeout chicken dishs and went out to get them.

When he came back, Gareth was still naked. Cris raised his eyebrows.

“I did shower, I just don’t want to bother to get dressed. I’m having you for dessert anyway.”

Cris laughed and shook his head. “I don’t mind”, he said.

“Who would?” Gareth asked.

The apartment had no dinner table, only an extended kitchen counter with some bar stools for seats. There were no dishes or kitchen utensils, either.

Cristiano found the idea of Gareth’s bare ass on his new barstools strangely weird. Since Gareth refused to use the plastic fork and knife for eating, too, he figured he’d prefer to let the animal eat in bed.

He set the food and water on a stool by the foot of the bed and sat himself on the floor, legs crossed. Naked Gareth lied on his stomach shamelessly uncovered and gobbled pieces of oven-baked chicken leaning to his elbows, licking and sucking his fingers after each mouthful.

 _He’s evil, he does that on purpose_ , Cris thought.

“I didn’t know you were such a caveman, Gareth”, he said.

“But you like it”, Gareth said.

Cristiano couldn’t say no to that.

 

Especially after the said caveman collected all the takeout trash carefully after they had eaten, found a box of cleaning wipes from the kitchen, wiped the stool clean, put the used wipe in the trash bag, tied it in a neat knot, placed it by the door and went to bathroom to wash his hands.

And announced, coming back to the room, that he was now ready to unwrap his dessert from his unnecessary clothes.

And later, in bed, licked and kissed his way down his chest, held his nipples one by one just barely between his teeth, licking and teasing them with his tongue, that combination of sharp biting and wet softness intoxicatingly electric.

That long tongue finding ways to curve around his balls, that huge mouth devouring him whole, working and sucking and, dear god, swallowing like he’d never done anything else in his life.

Sweet jesus, this man was a miracle. Caveman’s dessert was not a bad place to be, after all.

 

Gareth squirmed and climbed his way back to Cristiano’s arms, resting his head on his chest. Cristiano hugged him tight. “I wish I had found you when I played in England. Do you remember any of your games in Manchester?”

“I remember my Tottenham debut. It must have been in 2007”, Gareth said.

“I should have kidnapped you. I would have dressed you in leather pants and a mesh shirt and taken you to the Canal Street clubs. I would have groped your ass on the dance floor and sucked your balls empty in the toilet.”

Gareth giggled at Cristiano’s enthusiasm.  “You wouldn’t have looked at me twice. I think you never did. I was 18 and had horrible hair and ears.”

“You were cute enough to eat”, Cristiano said and leaned down to nibble Gareth’s earlobe.

It tickled, Gareth giggled some more. “It was my jinx years. We never won a game if I played. It was terrible”, he said rubbing his forehead with his fingertips.

“I would have fucked the jinx out of you”, Cristiano declared, “Why didn’t Spurs just call me for help?”

He made Gareth laugh heartily. “You surely would have done that”, he said, turning his face up to look at Cris.

“Oh, we would have been the hottest couple in Britain since the Beckhams. Bigger than William and Kate.” Cristiano said with glorious certainty.

Gareth was quiet for a moment, thinking.

“I don’t think even you could have pulled it off. Being all William and Kate with another man in Britain, even at that time”, he said.

Cris pondered the thought too. “I might have. That year or the next, not any earlier. Maybe I still could.” He kissed Gareth on the top of his head. “But not with you, baby boy. Your family is too cute. I would be the homewrecker and nobody would forgive me that.”

“I’d hate to see you with anybody else.” Gareth regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth. He had no right.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve to say that”, Cristiano replied, a hint of coldness creeping in his voice.

Gareth wasn’t sure if his kiss was enough to tell he was sorry. He said it out loud, but he had a vague feeling it still wasn’t enough. What he could give would never be enough.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to write this! But let me tell you, writing sex is HARD WORK, at least for me. If it's as labored to read as it is to write, I'm gladly leaving it on a less explicit level in any future writing...
> 
> Part II of the end chapter is already largely written, but I don't know how much the unwritten parts will still take, so I can't say when it will be up.
> 
> Please tell me what you’ve liked and not liked this far, what you thought of this chapter and what you would like to read about in the last one, in case I have left out something important. Can't promise it will make it there, but chances are it will.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading! Please drop a note! Love you all! <3


	5. The Day, part II: A design for life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma has no clue there is no photoshoot.
> 
> Our galactic lovebirds have no clue of how protected they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so I suck at sticking to my plans but I trust you to forgive me. I’m still not at the end here.
> 
> I was frustrated when my end chapter just kept expanding because I put so much stuff in it. I wanted to split it in two, once again, but didn’t seem to find a decent place to make the cut.
> 
> Then I was inspired by a Manic Street Preachers song called "A Design for Life" and knew I had a chapter that would be meaningful to write. I’m referring to the song in a couple of spots here. To me it symbolizes a way of life, a certain kind of working class masculinity and means of constructing and maintaining it.
> 
> Basically I still ended up with tons of smut and cuddling.

 

The next time Gareth saw Cristiano he handed him a key.

“I never want to see you standing alone in that hallway again. I feel so bad that I kept you waiting for me like that. From now on, let yourself in as soon as you get there. I’ll still try to be there first.” Cristiano said.

They sat side by side on a bench in an empty locker room, almost an hour before the morning training session; they had made a habit out of arriving early. Gareth justified it to himself with Alba’s preschool routine: if he dropped her off to school on his way to training, it didn’t really make sense to drive back home anyway.

 Gareth held the little key in his fingers, turned it around, weighed it on the palm of his hand.

_From now on._

This was really happening. The other day hadn’t been just a momentary lapse, a one-off thing, an error to forget as soon as possible.

 

He realized he hadn’t yet said Cris anything, just sat there silently, staring at the key like it was the first time he ever saw such an object in his life and wondered what it was.

“You really want to keep seeing me?” he asked. _Idiot, a ‘thank you’ would have been nice_ , he punched himself internally. “I mean, thank you, this is… this is so much.”

He felt even a bigger idiot. Since when was he so awkward and clumsy? Since forever, he remembered. The way he was with Cristiano these days, so bold, excited, sure and comfortable, wasn’t the way he had always been around people.

Cristiano turned on the bench to face him, took his hand and looked at him closely.

“I can’t let you go now. It feels like I’ve found something new, something absolutely wonderful”, he said.

Gareth wasn’t sure how he felt about being Cristiano’s ‘something new’.

“Wow. What are you going to do with it?” he asked and hated himself for the snappish blurt as soon as he heard how it sounded.

“Don’t be mean to me, Gareth. You’re not a toy. You know I didn’t mean that.” Cristiano said, studying Gareth’s eyes deeply.

Gareth nodded. “I know. Sorry.”

“I’m only beginning to know you but you are already a part of me. I can’t stop thinking about you, I feel you everywhere. I’m a new me with you. I need to find out what this is about, where this leads.” Cristiano’s words came out passionately, he looked in Gareth’s eyes as if wanting to see if what he said really sank in.

Gareth trembled. He had to look up to keep his eyes from watering until he could turn them back at Cristiano.

He buried the key deep in his pocket to free his both hands, took Cristiano’s face between them and pressed their foreheads together, held his eyes closed for a moment and opened them again, watery blue eyes staring deep in the warm brown ones. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

“How can you say things like that, Cristiano? That is how _I_ feel. That is what _I_ think.”

He pressed his eyes shut, a lone teardrop still escaping on his cheek. Cris kissed it away, then his lips, then straightened his back and turned to sit upright.

Footsteps, always someone coming.

 

It was their reality, but was their reality a bad place to be? Today it didn’t seem so.

Training was fun. No matter how many laps there were to be run, they might as well have done an extra mile.

They found each other with the ball, they found the net, they found everyone. The mood was energetic, concentrated, yet cheerful; smiles and laughter over the green grass, pale autumn sun shining through a thin veil of clouds.

Buzzing to be here, to prepare for the next game, always something new to come, to achieve, Gareth thought.

Cristiano’s pass landed within a running step’s length from his feet, in the exact direction he was heading. He netted it easily, sent a smile across the green field.

Love was all around.

 

Later in the evening Cristiano’s text message made him smile.

It was a solitary emoji, a dull grey square office building.

Then came the second one.  _Tomorrow 14?_

Gareth went to Emma all turned on, grabbed her into a hug from behind and bit her neck.

“We have a photoshoot tomorrow afternoon for some new gear. I had forgotten all about it”, he said.

Emma laughed. “I know you love those things. How many different kits you even need? Or is it suits again?”

Gareth shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”

“They’ll make you sexy anyway, don’t worry”, she teased. Gareth’s life was in some ways so absurd. He couldn’t care less for clothes but had to model them constantly.  All those products didn’t even make it to the club store eventually, and that seemed sometimes like a waste of the players’ time.

Gareth always claimed that he still didn’t know how to act on camera, but some of those campaign photos could be pretty hot, she had to admit. Maybe they should ask one of those photographers to do their wedding pics.

 

Lying was so easy it was scary, Gareth thought. The scary part wasn’t that he got away with it so easily; the scary part was that he could do it so calmly, keep his cheeks from blushing, his hands from sweating tremendously.

What if he could tell Emma what was going on? That he had feelings for another person and wanted to explore them, in a way that was no threat to what they had, their relationship, their family. That he asked of her approval and patience over it. An agreement of sorts.

He knew right away that the idea was absolutely foolish, spineless and despicable.

For one thing, his relationship with Emma was never planned to be something that could include people from outside their family. They had started dating as any girlfriend and boyfriend, on a natural presumption of monogamy. Gareth hadn’t really even been tempted to put it to test earlier; sure, there had been crushes but nobody he would want to pursue further or be willing to let near him, because having one true love in his life besides football was enough for him. He had no interest in making his life any more complicated than it was with what the sport required of him.

Secondly, he had no right to impose the responsibility of his feelings and actions on another person, let alone on somebody who had devoted her whole life to him, and who was financially completely dependent of him. It would be downright cruel.

And what if she said no? Would he really give up Cristiano at this point or would he continue seeing him behind Emma’s back, only with double the lying since she had clearly stated that she wouldn’t stand such a thing?

Or, even worse, what if she would be completely devastated by what had happened already, leave him in an instant? He couldn’t even begin to think what it would do to their children. What being apart from the girls, seeing them maybe every other week, would to him? What would it do to the girls, if they never had both of their parents under the same roof at the same time? They needed to be together. All four of them. He could not think his life any other way.

 

 

He didn’t want to think his life without Cristiano, either. Not at this point. The boring office building emoji was enough to set his blood on fire any time he looked at it on his phone. Yes, he had kept it; however, he had deleted the date and time message.

He had mild nausea thinking about all the traditional features of a cheater’s behavior he carried through every day these days, but shook it off justifying his actions with his feelings.

What he had with Cristiano felt so deep and meaningful, pure and authentic. How could something so true and so good be wrong?

How could it be wrong to want to protect his family from something that could shatter their happiness, their life? At this point, the lies and the secrecy were exactly that – means of protection.

To keep everything in its place. _A design for life_ , Gareth thought.

His life hadn’t gone the usual Whitchurch boy’s route, but somehow, blessedly, his love life had. He had found a girl, got a home and a couple of kids.

He had always been so much at home where he came from, that in his early twenties he had often driven back to Cardiff even in the middle of the week, away from any London nightclubs that would have welcomed the young blue-eyed Spurs sensation eagerly, as a certain bait to attract girl clients to the bar and the dance floor.

When they had moved to Madrid, the one thing that he didn’t need to be unsure about was his family. When he had Emma, he had home with him wherever he was. She was his rock, his roots, a reminder to show from where he came.

A design for life.

Until now.

 

Gareth and Cris left the training ground at different times, to different directions. Cristiano’s Bugatti roared towards a certain Madrid block from the east, Gareth’s family-size SUV was parked to its western side minutes later.

Gareth hummed walking towards the flat door. When he opened it with his copy of the key, Cris was already in, just like he had promised.

 

For a moment they just stood there, face to face. Slowly they touched each other’s hands, entwining fingers together, bodies and faces approaching each other slowly. They nudged their noses gently together, studied each other’s smiling eyes; tilted their heads just slightly, letting their lips sweep each other with a gentle, barely-there brush, part, brush again, just inhaling each other’s presence, warmth, absorbing the electricity.

Then they released the hands, cupped them on each other’s faces, closed every distance there was between their lips, faces and bodies, sharing the heated kiss they had been missing for days.

Gareth stripped Cris of his Nike T-shirt, felt the magnificent muscles on his back with his hands, kissed his way across his cheek to the side of his neck, his ear, back across his neck, making a gentle, careful stop on his pointy Adam’s apple, kissed and sucked his way along his collarbones to his shoulders, wanting to feel and know every bit of his body, so new and yet so familiar.

Cristiano’s hands were in his hair, pulling it open, digging in, shaking the wavy locks down, fingertips massaging his scalp. It was heavenly; he felt admired, loved.

Cris kept one hand in his hair, lifted his chin with another, locked their lips together again. His tongue was so soft, tender; an image of rose petals flashed through Gareth’s mind for a brief moment. But then it was heavy, fleshy, demanding on his, the only similarity to flowers its colour.

 

Cristiano’s hands wandered down on his body to the hem of his shirt and slid underneath. He let them glide tightly over his sides and push his shirt up to the armpits, where he helped undress it. Cris kept looking at his body, tracing it with his hands, steadying them on the narrowest point of his slim waist, visibly adoring his pale figure with an intense gaze that made Gareth blush.

“Do you even know how beautiful you are?”

Gareth didn’t know if the praise was easier or harder to believe when he heard it from Cristiano, of all people. The only answer he could give was a smile.

Cris lowered his hands to his pants and undressed him of them, too. Gareth was a bit embarrassed they were humble grey melange sweats; he hadn’t really planned his clothing in the morning even though he was almost going on a date with the hottest guy he knew. He had just tossed on something usual he would wear on his way to training and a pre-planned photoshoot, where he would be made to change anyway.

It was a ridiculous reason to be embarrassed about. Cris had seen him better and worse dressed, as well as more or – literally – less covered and still wanted him. He couldn’t believe his luck but he knew he really shouldn’t be denying it from himself at this moment.

 

Cristiano was blessedly oblivious to Gareth’s musings and continued his lovely trip over his body. Those rose pink lips had started to trace the same trail his fingers had gone before, down Gareth’s chest, sides, the V shape of his hips. Cris stopped when he had lowered his face on the level of Gareth’s crotch, opened his mouth wider, tilted his head to graze his dick through the material of his underpants with his teeth, gently making sure he did it all the way from the root to the sensitive tip.

Gareth moaned to the feeling out loud, had to reach back to the edge of the kitchen counter to keep his balance. So ready to be rocked from his feet and so easy to please, again.

Cris dug the hardened cock out and licked its tip with small movements. Gareth felt the need to shut his eyes because the sensation was so intense but kept looking, he didn’t want to miss a second of the sight. Cris put his mouth further on him, licking the tip with his tongue inside his mouth, sucking him further in, the sweet hot wetness, the rhythm of the agile tongue, the sight of that face tasting him almost unbearable.

It was too soon to lose it. Gareth put his hand on Cristiano’s hair, moved it to his cheek, gently lifted his chin although it hurt to let that source of ecstasy go. “Cristiano, dear”, he said, “Let’s go to bed.”

He took his hand, led him to the bed, sat down, had Cris stand up next to him between his knees, helped him undress, pulled him down to bed, on top on himself. He wrapped his legs around Cristiano’s hips, shifting his own to guide the head of Cristiano’s dick as close to the right place as he could.

“Baby, wait”, Cristiano hissed to him. He lifted himself to his hand and knees to grope the nightstand for condoms and lube.

“Are you sure we need those?” Gareth asked, watching Cris roll the condom on. Cristiano looked at him.

“I’m not gonna lecture to you. But what do you know about me, really? You don’t skip the safety belt when you drive.”

Gareth wouldn’t argue, Cristiano’s fingers already inside him.

 

Gareth was such a sight. Cristiano wished the Welsh boy would always stay like this, so raw and ready, taking every touch like he had been hungry for it for days, for years. Shying away from nothing, looking straight at him.

Gareth’s erect cock was a bloodshot red exclamation mark on the pale body, hue intensifying from the round pink balls to the head that was almost purple like a full-grown ripe plum. It had been amazing to feel it with his tongue earlier, so smooth and slick and hard and hot, so tender and vivid to the touch.

And the moans that started as soon as he pushed in that starved, wanting ass. _Ooooooh Cris, yes,  no, no, never, never stop_ ; it had been ringing in his head through days and nights since their first time, the last time, and now it was there again; what a turn-on it was to be so coveted, such an answer to this sweet man’s desires. And how he felt, so muscled and toned on the outside, so tight and sweet and trembling in the inside.

Gareth kept his eyes locked at his, gaze deep, wondering, like searching for answers. _Where did you come from? Why are you so important to me now?_ He lifted his head up from the bed, brought his face closer, kissed Cristiano under his chin, where his neck connected to his head, on the hollow of his throat, on the collarbone.

Cristiano picked up his pace, pounded into him with intensified rhythm. He wanted to fill up and hammer down all that need and emotion and longing at the same time, or to dissolve, drown into Gareth, he didn’t know what the most, perhaps all at the same time, perhaps it was all the same.

That sweet release, all hot and wet and sticky, was there and everything was soft and warm and out-of-breath giggly after that.

 

Cris didn’t cover up for moving about in the small flat. Gareth loved looking at him from the bed; he was so perfectly at ease with his body and its movement, almost flaccid meaty cock hanging in front, swaying with the rhythm of his strut as he walked to the bathroom and to the kitchen area for a drink of water. It was nothing he hadn’t seen in the showers earlier, but here and now, when there were just the two of them, it felt nice and cozy in a daring way, so intimate.

Cris smiled at him over the counter, sipping from the bottle, one hand leaning on the countertop.

Gareth had to get out of the bed, go hug him from behind, tight. Shoulders, waists, hips leveled, just like his dream, he remembered.

“When I do this in the game from now on, I will remember you naked and have an enormous boner”, he said to Cristiano’s ear, close and warm.

Cristiano chuckled. “I can’t wait”, he said.

Gareth kept hugging him, butting his cheek to his neck, rocking them lightly from side to side.

“I wish I was drunk. I could give you the ‘I love you man’ speech and pretend I remember nothing in the morning. You must have had your share of those”, he said.

“Yeah, I know what you mean”, Cristiano said. “But I thought you never drink."

“You’re right”, Gareth said.

 

He wanted to say so much. But some words were too heavy with meanings and possible consequences. And he was a physical guy, preferred doing to saying.

Cristiano was so strong and beautiful, so perfect and so close, right there in his arms.

As long as he had him there, he would make the most of it.

 

Cristiano liked Gareth holding him so close. He was so comfortable and reassuring, so masculine and warm. But at the same time there was a trace of vulnerability, the same kind of fragile confusion he had expressed in that hotel room in Dortmund in the morning, what was it he had said? _I don’t know what to do. I’m not the same I used to be._

 _But you sure know what you want and how to get it_ , Cris thought. He felt Gareth’s hairy face rubbing the nape of his neck, pouty lips starting to nibble at it, sending chills up and down his spine.

Gareth opened his mouth more, starting to kiss and lick his back further down. His hands moved nice and close down Cristiano’s sides, tight and steady enough not to tickle.

Boy. Gareth did love touching him and it was heavenly.

Hands stopping at the sides of his hips, pecks and gentle bites on both of his buttocks. Soft and coarse hair of the moustache scratching his skin, in a way almost too intimate.

He sensed Gareth’s face back away, no, he was definitely enjoying what he had been doing and wanted more. Cris arched his back to curve his ass further back and looked over his shoulder. Gareth was on his knees behind his back, taking a good, admiring look at his bum.

“You should definitely have your next underwear adverts shot from this angle. They’d sell billions”, Gareth said and smiled. He could be like that, one moment needy and passionate, a cocky streetboy the next.

He was so lovely. He slapped Cristiano’s ass sharply, not too hard, just to see if the firm muscles of his buttocks wiggled from the hit, satisfied to see some movement, as if he was almost scientifically curious to learn the ways Cristiano’s body responded to his touches.

Right now it was _very_ responsive. Cris moaned from pleasure when he felt Gareth grab his buttocks, thumbs on the underside, and kiss them again, giving no gentle pecks but sloppy smooches that evolved into licks and bites.

 _Oh yes, please, keep going, this is good and getting better_ , Cris thought, trying to keep his patience together, keep himself from shoving his ass as far back as he really, really wanted.

Gareth _did_ go on. He spread Cris’ buttocks very, very slowly apart, further and further, his licks closer and closer to the crevice between them, Cristiano’s moans quieting down to muted panting, until he almost held his breath with anticipation.

By no means in vain. At last Gareth licked right in the middle, over his stretched hole, with wide wet brush of his tongue, over and over again, getting him shake all over with pleasure. And then the tongue was all constricted, pointy and probing, and yes, he wanted to give in, do nothing but lean his torso on the countertop, push his ass back to that face, he would never have believed Gareth would go there so soon but obviously this guy was, well, versatile.

The tongue didn’t go that much inside, but then there was a helping finger and oh, it was good. He felt Gareth kiss his way back up his spine, keeping his finger inside him, his hard cock against the inside of his leg, knee and thigh on his way up, butting into his balls when he finally stood up again, moving that long finger slowly in and out, making him want more.

Cris lifted his torso upright again to welcome Gareth’s mouth back on his neck, the free hand wandering over his chest, neck, in his hair, over his forehead as the mouth moved to kiss his ear, breath so heavy and hot.

This was too good and too hot to stop. “I want you Gareth”, Cris said. “Get the lube. Now.”

 

Gareth asked no questions, did not stumble on his feet along the few swift steps to the bed and back. He really would have preferred to forget the condom because Cris had said nothing about it but managed to get it on with shaky hands. He splurted a little too much lube on his hands but figured it wouldn’t be a problem and no, it wasn’t, Cristiano’s all-round perfect ass was a pleasure to grease up, the muscle around the rim opening up smoothly but giving sweet, pulsating contractions on his fingers and oh, he had to remember to breathe.

Cris pushed himself back at him, waiting, inviting. Gareth took the hint and pushed in. It was… sliding through a very tight ring that gave up just enough to enter between soft plush walls surrounding his cock, those tiny muscles clenching softly around him again, the squeeze intense but tender.

His thrusts were slow and careful at first but Cristiano’s pleased low growling got him heated, shifting up a gear, hammering and pummeling the man against the counter in a way that was not at all as nice and sweet as he had wanted but Cris didn’t seem to mind; he leaned his head back to his shoulder, eyes closed, mouth open, panting and making those hot little noises, low growls and high-pitched whimpers from under his breath.

Gareth slid his hands between Cris and the counter to palm both his cock and his balls in them, creating a slippery nest to squeeze and rub and fondle him. He soon felt Cris coming all over his hands while he was fucking into him and that was what pushed him off the edge. His final thrust went so deep so hard that he hurt his own hand, still trapped between the soiled kitchen counter and their bodies.

But yes it was worth it, a thousand times.

 

They collapsed on the floor, half sitting, leaning on each other. Gareth cradled Cristiano on his arms, lost for words, feeling gratitude and love but both felt so inappropriate to utter aloud at this moment.

Cristiano kissed his arms, his shoulders, his chest, whatever was closest.

Later they laid in the bed, washed and towel-dried, nothing but holding each other, cheek to cheek, touching from head to toe, occasionally squeezing each other to a tighter hug.

Outside the stone and concrete walls Madrid was living loud.

 

It might have started gradually even earlier, but at least from then on they gravitated towards each other constantly.

When they were boarding on planes or buses they made a true effort not to go sit with each other but find seats next to anybody else.

But before long one or the other found himself walking down the aisle, for some reason needing to go past the other one. Then he would just hover about the place, leaning on back- or armrests, engaged in dialogues that consisted mostly of jokes that made no sense because they started from nowhere and ended in the middle, lots of giggling and just staring at each other. That would continue until whoever was seated there originally excused himself and left the seat free.

Then started the gradual snuggling. Just to take an example, any teammate sitting close enough on the flight back from Seville after a nice 1-6 win from Real Betis could have reported the procedure as follows.

 

Gareth sits on the window seat.

Cristiano sits next to him.

He becomes very interested in the magazine Gareth is leafing through, eventually placing his chin on Gareth’s shoulder because he just needs to see the page properly.

Gareth turns his head just a bit, smiling all the way from his shyly curving lips to his blue eyes, nuzzles Cristiano’s cheek quickly with his nose, continues reading like he even sees the page.

Cristiano decides he’s tired, lifts his chin up but leans his head now on the shoulder.

Gareth leafs the magazine through, puts it down, rests his head on the top of Cristiano’s head. Sits there for a while. Lifts the armrest up from between them, lets the back of the seat down a little, slides down on the seat to have his back in a resting position.

Lifts his arm up from behind Cristiano.

Cristiano moves his head from Gareth’s shoulder to Gareth’s chest.

Gareth wraps his arm around him.

Aren’t they now like two high school sweethearts on a field trip?

No, they’re not through yet.

Gareth is not comfortable enough. He asks Cris for a pillow, turns his back to the wall, tucks the pillow between his back and the armrest. Leans back, kicks off his shoes, lifts one foot on the seat, knee bent, leg against the backrest, the other foot down on the floor.

Cris snuggles himself between his legs, his waist next to Gareth’s thigh, leans his back to Gareth, finds a good place to rest his head up on Gareth’s chest.

Gareth rests his arm over Cristiano’s shoulder. Cris entwines his fingers with his own.

Now, limbs lazily entangled, they are the high school sweethearts nested cozily on the back seat of a field trip bus.

 

Surely they heard about it later. Or about the Warsaw return trip, when Gareth discovered that he could bug the hell out of Cris just landing his chin on the top of his head and moving it, because his beard messed up his hair really irritatingly. Or the time when Gareth actually fell asleep with his head on Cristiano’s lap and Cris didn’t have the heart to wake him up and he ended up letting Gareth drool on the trousers of his new black suit.

Think again.

How does a magician hide an elephant on stage? He has it there all the time, but with mutual consent, the audience chooses to look elsewhere. If somebody pointed at the elephant, shouted: look at that big ass thing, there in the dimly lit spot, it would ruin the show for everyone.

Real Madrid’s first team was one delicate show. Nobody was stupid enough to think they would gain some advantage with leaking gossip on their top scorers, whose names sold the biggest numbers of fan merchandise.

What was there even to gossip about? They were a touchy bunch of people anyway, kissing cheeks as greetings, laying down in piles for photos after victorious games. Sure, Bale usually preferred to keep his hands to himself in off-pitch situations, saving his generous hugs and pats for games, but after three years one must have adapted to the culture a little bit.

If somebody still felt like pointing at the (obvious? invisible?) elephant, they still needed to think twice. They would have to get through the defense line of Pepe and Marcelo, and sometimes Sergio.

So the camera apps stayed down. There was no elephant on the stage, nothing to see. Just jokes and giggles, comfortable silences and entwined limbs.

 

And the results were not entirely bad, either. They won away, Cristiano scoring the last goal. They won home, Gareth kicking in the first one. Another two wins. Then the next one, Cristiano scoring a hattrick to silence the critics who always crawled out of their caves if he didn’t have a goal for two or three games in a row.

Between the games phones beeped with the arrival of a dull square grey office building emoji from Cris to Gareth or from Gareth to Cris. As an answer either a heart (Gareth) or a thumb up (Cris) or _“sorry, can’t”_.

 

Gareth’s contract to Real Madrid was extended with six more years. He thanked the club in his next game with one of his fastest goals ever, less than a minute into the first half. Otherwise the match was a weird event on an empty stadium in Warsaw, their game frustratingly falling apart, leaving them once again with one UCL point after a 3-3 draw.

But at least he got to sleep with Cris. And bug the hell out of him when he learned to mess up his coiffure with his bearded chin on the return flight.

 

Weren’t they just ace at the business of hiding the elephant?

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These were the verses of the song that inspired me the most:
> 
> "I wish I had a bottle  
> Right here in my pretty face  
> to wear the scars  
> To show from where I came
> 
> We don't talk about love  
> we only want to get drunk  
> And we are not allowed to spend  
> As we are told that this is the end
> 
> A design for life  
> a design for life"
> 
> Manic Street Preachers had some massive radio hits in the late 1990's and I thought that while it may not be Gareth's type of music it could be part of his childhood background soundtrack. 
> 
> Next one is the last one, then. Thank you for sticking with me!
> 
> Comments and kudos welcome.


	6. The Day, part III: If you tolerate this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kroos the line, face the fury.  
> Decision time.

 

Real Madrid got their game much better together against Leganés back at home, Santiago Bernabéu. They were intense, concentrated, active, and Gareth was very much in the heart of it all. He was alert, moved with electric pace and precision; he stood up straight and bold, a towering inferno in the middle of the field.

He was effective, too. He took Real to the lead with two first half goals, and ran most of the second half tirelessly, putting ball after another towards the goal, but never in.

In the end, it was Alvaro Morata who sent them to the November international break with the third goal.

 

It was a joyous, festive feel to head off the pitch with the first clean sheet for ages. Gareth was all group hugs and smiles, upbeat and happy.

Smiling Cristiano reached him in the tunnel, placing a hand on his shoulder to halt him.

“Wait there, hero”, he said, massaging his shoulder with his fingertips, just tight enough to send a jolt of electricity in Gareth’s flesh.

Gareth slowed his steps down to enjoy Cristiano’s presence in his space. They were steaming; the strain on their muscles was settling as warmth on their bodies, bringing on a second wave of sweat beading on the skin, soaking into their clothes, evaporating further from the complex technical fibres.

“Come”, Cris said, guided Gareth past their dressing room door, finding an unoccupied toilet further down. “Get in.”

 

Cristiano opened the bathroom door and pushed Gareth in. He locked the door behind them and pushed Gareth’s back to the wall. He spread Gareth’s arms and pinned him to the wall by his wrists.  He looked at him wickedly and leaned his head closer.

He gave Gareth a quick peck on the lips, leaned his head further and licked sweat off his neck, pushing his knee between his legs.

“You were such a sight there” Cris said. “Two goals and so hungry for the third.”

Gareth smiled.

“Thank you.”

It felt odd receiving a compliment on his brace like that, all spread and pressed against the wall. Did Cris know even himself what he was on about? Was he rewarding Gareth for his great game, punishing him for not reaching the hattrick he was so eagerly pursuing or punishing him for scoring twice in a game where Cris hadn’t made a single goal?

Fuck guessing right now. The situation was hot as hell, whatever the reason.

Joy of the victory bubbling under Gareth’s skin started to mix with the deep dark arousal that came from Cristiano’s body pressing close to him and his dominant behavior. The way Cris acted made him want to respond in two completely different ways that battled in his mind.

He wanted to obey, submit himself to Cris, give himself to his use.

He wanted to take Cristiano’s initiative as a challenge, compete, take any dare Cris threw his way and top it.

Either way, anywhere Cris would go, he would go.  He already knew this was going to be one hell of a game, a tricky dance.

But that was something he was always up to.

That was one of the main reasons he had been initially drawn to Cristiano, he realized. This was the hot water under the thin ice that had long ago crackled and broken, and he was taking a divine dive and enjoying every moment.

 

Cristiano let go one of his wrists and moved his hand down to Gareth’s back thigh, over his shorts, gripping him strongly. He moved his hand up. The sweaty fabric was left clinging to Gareth’s skin.

Cristiano’s strong hand reached the top of Gareth’s thigh, moved slowly to the buttock, squeezed it. “You have grass and dirt all over your pretty white shorts, Gareth”, he said.

Gareth knew he had, of course he had. Cris was so close he could smell all the familiar post-match scents on the both of them: damp dirt, crushed grass, slowly evaporating sweat, all mixed with a hint of Cristiano’s luxuriously scented hair products.

He leaned his back against the wall, looked back at Cris narrowing his eyes, lips parted, smiling. He tapped the middle of his upper lip with the tip of his tongue.

“What are you going to do about it, Cris?” he was gloriously mimicking a smug schoolboy decidedly disobedient to any authority figure.

Cris answered with a harder squeeze. “Did you fall down a lot? Did you slide on the wet grass?” he asked.

“I might have”, Gareth said, glancing him up and down. Cristiano shook his head slowly, like a warning.

“Did you hurt this sweet ass?” Cris asked, now two hands on him, squeezing him through the shorts, pulling him standing, closer. Gareth moved his hips slowly, butted and pressed himself back to the grasping hands, front to Cristiano’s crotch. Swayed slowly, with a tiniest movement, from side to side to feel the friction.

“I didn’t feel a thing”, he said.

Cristiano locked his movement to place with a steely grip of his hips and slapped his ass sharply with his wide hand. “What did you say?”

“It didn’t hurt a bit.” Gareth kept his face defiant, his eyes devouring shamelessly Cristiano’s perfectly curving pink lips. Cris couldn’t allow him to take the physical initiative there, so he had to close the gap between their faces and kiss Gareth fiercely, hands clutching and grasping the white shirt on his back, feeling the lean, strong muscles underneath the sweaty thin fabric.

 

Gareth felt Cristiano’s erection against his own. He felt his whole body go on goosebumps and smoking hot at the same time, his hungrily moving mouth salivating excessively. He wanted to touch it, hell, he _would_ touch it, right now.

He quickly reached the waistband of Cristiano’s shorts, slid his fingers under it, buried his hand in his shorts, grasped the hard cock, jerked it.

Cristiano grabbed his arm and detached from the kiss, swollen lips turning in a slightly condescending smile. His voice was soft but assertive.

“Easy there, boy. I know you want it but you’re going to suck it as wet and slicky as you can because I am going to fuck your sweet goalscoring ass right here. It may hurt but I know you can take it. You want it, huh?”

“Yes” was the only word Gareth could pant from under his breath. Cris pressed his shoulders as he knelt down before him, digging the hard standing cock from his shorts. He took it in his mouth and did what he was told, literally drooling all over its magnificent hardness under Cristiano’s satisfied, watchful eye.

 

Cris gestured him to stand up near the basin and lean his hands to the wall both sides of the mirror. He could see the reflection of Cris working behind his back: he yanked his shorts down with one fast move and spat in his own hand, starting to quickly prep Gareth with his fingers. _This is in no way healthy or sane after a full match of running, kicking and taking knocks_ , Gareth realized, but some moments were too precious for sanity.

Yeah Cris was right. It did hurt, but it was a good hurt. Cris was all as skillful and careful with his fingers as always before, and Gareth was so hot he just needed to get that cock in him. The friction only intensified the pleasure of Cristiano pushing inside him, filling him.

Cristiano pressed his torso on Gareth’s back. He grabbed a good fistful of Gareth’s hair, tugged his head by the hair to get him arch his neck, to make sure he faced the mirror and looked at them together, their darkened eyes, open, panting lips. There was something definitely _wrong_ in their reflection in the mirror, the whole situation, like a blasphemy of their prestigious white uniforms. So holy fucking filthy it was beyond hot.

Cris bit his mouth on the side of his neck, sucking the skin, hand grasping for his cock, finding it, squeezing, moving, his eyes stuck on its reflection in the mirror. Cris fucked him through his orgasm, his juices falling on Cristiano’s hand and on the edge of the basin. Cris stopped like he had got an electric shock, cock to root inside him.

For a moment they just stood there, Gareth leaning his forehead to the cool glass of the mirror, panting. The frozen grimace on his face softened to a disbelieving smile.

Cris parted from him, flaccid cock crawling slowly like a snake out from its hole. Gareth felt droplets of cum following its trail, he grabbed tissue to sweep it off but was sure that more would continue to leak out slowly, leaving new stains to the already dirty match shorts.

Maybe he would keep them as a secret souvenir.

 

Cristiano sat on the floor, looking at his hand, then at Gareth. He started to lick his hand slowly, brown eyes never letting go of Gareth’s face, a barely-there smile curving the edges of his lips.

Gareth sat himself carefully on the lid of the toilet seat, still out of breath. He lifted one foot on his other knee, unlacing his bright orange football boot, pulling it off the tired foot, then the next one.

“What the hell just happened?” he asked Cris and let out a quiet burst of thoroughly joyful laughter.

“You happened”, Cris said, still licking his hand slowly, obscenely. “I have proof.”

 “I don’t think I can walk straight”, Gareth said. “You’d better go first back to the dressing room.”

He was quite sure that going there together would just be crossing some final line. That would mean they didn’t even try to hide any more. It was a reckless and dangerous attitude.

They might end up annoying people, too. You do not go fucking your teammate in the toilet after the game and come rubbing it to everybody’s faces, no matter how good and nice you are.

“No”, Cristiano said. “You go first. It’s good if they see that I own you.”

Whatever Cris dared Gareth to do, he couldn’t back down from.

He stood up from the toilet seat, straightening his clothing, supposing he was reeking of sweat and sex and Cristiano all over the place. His ass and lower back were sore, his inner thighs and knees felt weak and shaky.

He glanced himself in the mirror and hoped he hadn’t. His hair was disheveled and frizzy and he didn’t really feel like redoing it to a neat bun. Red blotches of heated blush burned on his cheeks and all over his neck; his earlobes shone in a shade of pink and the rush of blood under his almost translucent skin had brought his fading freckles up more distinctively than usual. His eyes were gleaming from adrenaline and whatnot other hormones raging around inside his body.

He was clearly out of his mind because he couldn’t help smiling at the sight.

“See you”, he said to Cris and headed to the dressing room with careful, bow-legged steps, almost limping, his boots hanging from his fingers.

 

Most of the people had already left. Toni was packing his things when Gareth entered the room.

“Hi, Toni, you played great”, Gareth said, but got no answer.

It was weird. Toni was one of his really good mates at the team, one of the few he spent time outside football, mainly in the form of small family get-togethers. He would have expected him to say something nice about the game, at least.

 

Toni’s face was stone. He looked like he would just storm out of the dressing room, but he stopped in front of Gareth.

Toni looked at him from head to toe to the boots in his hand. He opened his mouth but closed it again, shook his head and turned away.

Gareth felt he had just witnessed Toni’s rage to its uttermost extent.

He didn’t feel he deserved it.

Gareth caught Toni up before he reached the door.

“You have a problem with me?” he asked, infuriated.

Toni inhaled and exhaled, deep. He looked at Gareth, clearly in disgust.

“What’s wrong with you, Gareth?” he asked. “How long have you even been engaged now? Three months? You have the most fucked-up case of pre-wedding cold feet I have ever seen.”

Gareth felt his face burn.

Toni knew.

Toni didn’t know shit.

He had no idea this was not about his wedding, no fucking way whatsoever. Toni didn’t know that his life was the best and the worst because of Cristiano; because, yes, he was madly in love with him but was continuously a scared little shit about it all.

“Or does Emma know about this? Is she ok with it?” Toni continued.

Gareth’s face went blank.

“You don’t say a word to her.”

 

But Toni had already turned to leave. On the dressing room door he almost bumped into Cristiano who entered, smile as glowing as ever.

Toni froze Cris to his feet with his eyes.

“Get a fucking grip”, he mumbled, turning his face away like he didn’t want to look at that obnoxiously happy megawatt smile one second longer.

He wouldn’t have had to. The smile started to fade as Cristiano looked at Toni’s displeased face and Gareth’s dropped posture.

“What did you say?” Cris asked Toni.

Toni lifted his eyes the last time to glance at the both of them. “Just grow up, both of you”, he said and left.

 

Cristiano looked at the door closing after Toni, pondering if he should go after him and ask him to explain his words. But then he looked at Gareth, sitting on the bench, crumbled, face washed white. He sat next to him, rubbed his shoulders.

“What was it?” he asked.

Gareth was quiet. Cristiano shook his shoulder lightly, to wake him up, to get him to answer.

Gareth just sighed. “I’ll talk about it later”, he said, stood up awkwardly, went to drop his boots by his locker and headed, still half limping, to the shower room.

He undressed there and didn’t really feel like keeping his dirty game kit as a trophy any more.

The thought of losing a wild memory of a moment of sheer madness and excitement and having to replace it with a feeling of being a failure and a disappointment to a friend whose judgment he valued made him cry. He kept his face under the running water of the shower until he didn’t feel the tears rolling up any more.

Then he let his hair down and let the running water soak it. He was too tired to soap himself; he just stood under the shower until he felt that it had rinsed off enough of the day, he would wash himself better back home.

 

Cristiano sat by his locker when he got out of the shower room wrapped in a towel, drying his hair with another one.

“Can you talk to me now, Gareth?” he asked.

Gareth told about Toni. “I can tell it, he knows about us and he’s not cool with it, not one bit.”

He left out Toni’s exact phrasing. _The most fucked-up case_. It felt like saying that Cristiano was his fucked-up case, like what he was doing was wrong because he was doing it with him. Gareth didn’t know if Cris would read the words the same way, but he didn’t want to take the risk of hurting him.

Cristiano sighed. “Look, you have to see this from Toni’s view. He came here a year after you, right? You both come from a different culture, a different language, to a place that is totally foreign to you and your family. And the family, your kids are about the same age, right? You’re his closest peer group here. If he sees you guys falling apart, if he thinks you and your family can’t handle Madrid, he’s scared it might happen to him next.”

A verse of a song from his childhood rang suddenly through Gareth’s mind. _If you tolerate this, then your children will be next._

Gareth thought about Toni. He remembered them in a park with their families, boxed lunches for Alba and Leon, lattes for the parents, Emma pushing a stroller lazily back and forth to cradle the baby to stay asleep, chatting to Jessica who still had her huge baby bump; himself and Toni keeping an eye on the bigger ones who were running around, helping them to slides and swings and carousels.

It had been ages since anything like that, how many times had they even been to see them since Amelie was born? Had he really been so preoccupied with his own life, Emma’s family trouble, Nava’s sleeping schedule, games and contract negotiations and – oh.

He had to admit it to himself. For some time now his mind had been mostly twirling around Cristiano; waiting to hear about him, counting days or hours to the next time they could be together, longing for him when they weren’t, in some moments of clarity worrying and anguishing about what their relationship was doing to him as a man, to his life. 

Cristiano had a point, maybe he was right about Toni. If he was, Gareth could totally get Toni and it made him feel guilty and sorry. His choices affected people who had no part in them.

How did it get like this? One moment he was on the top of the world with Cris and the next one completely lost in anguish, his conscience drilling holes in the adventurous, upbeat mood he had enjoyed most of the time for weeks now.

 

Cristiano rubbed Gareth’s bare shoulder, kissed him on the cheek and stood up.

“You’d better get dressed. I’ll take a shower. We’ll talk more then, ok?” he asked.

Gareth nodded quietly. He drew his clothes on slowly. He heard water running and couldn’t help thinking of Cristiano standing under the shower, drops on his eyelashes, water flowing all over his body. He shook the image off like it would harm his brain to think of one of the absolute best things in his life.

 

“I’ll wait outside”, Gareth called out to Cristiano through the shower room door when he heard the water stop running. He felt a need to avoid the intimacy of seeing Cristiano drying and dressing himself; it would only take him to the last time in Cristiano’s flat when he had laid on the bed, watching Cris rub himself with a towel, smiling straight at him the whole time. Then he had crawled to lay down next to him, held and hugged him tight, stroked his hair. He had felt tears on the cheek resting on his own.

 

They agreed to cool things down for some time. At least try. Like really try. The international break was a welcome opportunity to keep apart when trainings and games would not force them to see each other. No text messages, no moody IMU-selfies, ok? The first training session after the break would be the next time they would talk, ok?

Besides, they had tons of things to do. Cristiano’s contract extension was ready to be signed and he had some new stuff coming with Nike. Alba had celebrated her 4th birthday but there would probably be another round of parties waiting with relatives in Wales.

Their loved ones really deserved some undivided attention. It would be ok.

 

Of course it was torture. The next day alone was hell to Gareth.

He tried to keep himself busy so that he would under no circumstances be strayed to watch the live stream from Cristiano’s contract signing event. It almost worked, he kept himself away from the screen for minutes after the announced time, but when he clicked the stream open just to check if it had already ended, he ended up staring at a huge close-up of Cristiano’s face.

There he sat, brown eyes magnified by his neat dark-rimmed glasses, pink tongue slipping quickly out to moisturize the lips, every detail from the way his upper lip curved up from the corner of the mouth to the cute shadow under the full lower lip so prominent in the HD picture. His hair was freshly cut very short, it would feel like velvet to his fingers.

Gareth missed him terribly. Flying back to Cardiff had never been a more welcome distraction.

 

Cristiano thought he saw Gareth everywhere, but when he looked closer, it was always somebody else.

Just a week, it couldn’t be this hard.

 

One day it really was him. _Gareth’s car is there,_ he recognized when he had to stop in a traffic jam on his way to collect his son from school.

Gareth was there, too, he stood by the tailgate of the parked SUV.

Cristiano almost honked to get his attention but didn’t when he saw Gareth moving.

He opened the tailgate and lifted a stroller frame out of the trunk, opening it up with a smooth, efficient move. He pushed it to Emma who had emerged from the other side of the car to the back door; Emma caught it neatly and lifted a baby seat from the car and attached it to the frame.

Gareth had already taken swift steps to the other side of the car and caught a running 4-year-old by the tailgate, grabbed the girl by the waist and lifted her on his shoulders.

Cristiano’s traffic light was green, he drove off before the other drivers would start whistling and honking. He saw the family from his rear view mirror, car lights blinking as a signal of the doors being locked, young parents and their little girls already on their way.

It was such a smooth everyday ballet, both knowing their moves, being able to trust the other one to know theirs. They were cute in such a real way, Cris thought.

Or was it real? It could as well be an image of cuteness that Cristiano himself could shatter to pieces with just a few words.

No. That was something he would never do. If there was a family who had a father like Gareth, even with all his imperfections, it should be protected from all harm in the world. Including himself, if that was what it took.

 

Cristiano sat in his parked car outside Cristianinho’s school until he was sure he could hold back his tears.

Then he walked with calm but assertive steps to the school gates to welcome his son with a sunny smile on his face.

He ran back to the car with his son and helped him buckle his seatbelt. He took the longer, scenic route home. They sang along with all the songs they knew that were playing on the car radio, he asked his son every single little detail of his school day and listened to him tell every single little detail of his school day.

They arrived home. He prepared a snack for them and fed the dogs. He helped the boy with his homework.

They went out with the dogs, let them run around in the garden. He watched his beautiful son play with the puppy: two pairs of such adorable, trusting dark eyes twinkling over the grass; hollers and yapping and laughter.

He prepared dinner for them, all by himself. Junior helped him set the table beautiful and clear the plates when they were ready.

They played a short game of street hockey in the front yard, a little longer football in the backyard. They watched some TV, just lounging on the couch.

He gave Junior a little snack for the night. He helped him wash his hair and watched that he brushed his teeth properly.

He listened to him read a book, ruffled his hair and told he did it good. He said a good night’s prayer with him, kissed him and tucked him up in his bed. He sat on his bed until he fell asleep, stroking his arm slowly over the covers.

He cleansed his face and brushed his teeth. He sat on the floor by junior’s room and listened to him breathe.

He went to his own room, slipped right in the middle of his large lonely bed, under the wide, luxurious duvet.

He turned to his side, curled himself up in the smallest ball he could and cried, as hard as he ever had, as silently as he ever could.

 

"I'm selling the flat."

Cristiano told his decision after the first training day after the qualification games (which had followed the annoying pattern of Portugal winning and Wales drawing), when they were walking to the carpark. November sun was shining low, casting long shadows ahead of them on the ground.

Cristiano talked about real estate prices in Madrid and Lisbon, compared the interest rates of Spanish and Portuguese banks, as if they were not mere excuses to sell the tiny studio in order to invest the money in Cristiano's hotels in Portugal. Financially it made no sense, the sum was totally irrelevant compared to Cristiano's net worth, but Gareth kept nodding along.

It would have been easy to Cristiano to get a new tenant, forget he even owned the place, just let the money roll in on one of is accounts.

Obviously it wasn't quite that easy. In a way it was a relief for Gareth, too. He would never have the haunting thought of the place, wondering if somebody lived there or if Cris had it, like now, "between tenants".

He would never be tempted to ask if the place was free, casually on the surface but all nerves and need and longing and lust underneath.

But would it be the end of whatever they had had, maybe were having right at the moment, being left without that one secret place in the middle of their busy city, in the middle of their busy lives?

The hotel rooms would still be a part of their lives, travelling with the team, away from home. Things might happen on the road and stay there, in a parallel universe, another reality.

It was a chance. A bad one.

Or not a bad one at all.

No, he shouldn't think like that. He was not that kind of guy. He might have acted that way all autumn, but deep down he was not that guy, not if he knew himself at all.

 

Apparently he didn't know himself all that well. Because the next thing he knew was himself asking Cristiano: "Have you had offers yet?"

"What?" Cristiano asked.

"On the place?"

It wasn't that far yet, the deal with the real estate agent had only just been signed, he was arranged to fetch the keys from Cristiano's accountant later.

Gareth reached for the smallest pocket of his jeans.

"You need to get them this one, too", he said with a key in his long, pale fingers.

Cristiano looked at the key and lifted his eyes slowly to meet Gareth's. They were as blue as the sea under a sunny sky.

The corner of his mouth twitched. He couldn't be smiling, Cristiano thought. Not his serious, loyal, devoted Gareth. Whose middle name was Frank, for god's sake.

Oh yes he was. Cristiano lifted his eyebrow and sent a questioning look at Gareth, who nodded slowly, looking straight at his eyes, that cute smile losing a bit of its bashfulness by the second as it grew wider.

 

"We'll take my car", Cris said. "We'll take your car", Gareth said.

They said it exactly simultaneously at each other’s faces. It almost made them laugh, but they settled for huge grins full of perfect white teeth.

"Race you there!"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full time!
> 
> The additional title is another Manics quote. Weird fact: the song "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" tells actually about Welsh volunteer fighters in the Spanish Civil War.
> 
> I can’t give an ending that would have a stronger closure than this. This kind of relationships seldom end well, and I don’t want to stick around to see any kind of catastrophe happen. I’ve pictured that storyline in my head and I’m not ready to deal with all the angst and ugliness. 
> 
> I’ll leave my lovely sweethearts in their still-too-raw-to-really-part-stage, their minds already made up to give their love, time and energy to their separate lives but bodies still in (e)motion.
> 
> It’s a good kind of ending, one they deserve at this point.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and thank you for all the sweet supporting comments along the way!  
> I’ll still cherish them, so please drop me a note and tell what you liked of the story. 
> 
> Love,  
> caixa
> 
> PS. In case you didn't notice, there is an extra chapter. For those who crave closure (don't we all).


	7. Extra: The Last Waltz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have often walked down this street before  
> but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before  
> all at once am I several stories high  
> knowing I'm on the street where you live.
> 
> Rather like a habit one can always break -  
> yet I've grown accustomed to the trace of something in the air  
> Accustomed to his face...
> 
> (from My Fair Lady songs, Frederick Loewe - Alan Jay Lerner)
> 
> This is an extra chapter. It’s about the one last time before the break-up or something like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continues straight from the end of the last chapter.
> 
> Hope this answers the questions left open!

Cristiano drove way too fast for busy city traffic. He parked the car far too carelessly for its price.

They shot themselves out of the car, banging the doors shut loudly, Cris locking the doors with his remote key while already running.

They raced to the front door, stumbled through it, raced to the lift - if it hadn't been on the ground floor with doors open, they probably would have continued running up the stairs.

They kissed all the way up on the lift, raced to the apartment door, slapped it with their hands simultaneously.

Gareth dug the key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, Cris opened it, they all but stumbled inside, barely keeping their balance, kissing all the way as they kicked their shoes off, landing wherever and threw their clothes on the floor, scattering them all over the place.

"D'do you - You have condoms on you?" Gareth panted between kisses.

"Fuck them, just get me pregnant, you stud", Cris answered, laughing under his breath into Gareth's mouth. He let Gareth walk them over to the bed, lay him there on his back, shove a pillow under his lower back as he climbed on the bed too, on his all fours over Cristiano, one knee between his legs.

"I can't promise you that", Gareth said, leaning down to plant soft kisses on his face.

"We would have beautiful children."

"We have beautiful children", Gareth answered, sadness flashing suddenly in his eyes, like a cloud had swept swiftly in the wind behind them.

"I know", Cristiano answered, pulling him into a soothing, comforting, loving hug. He held Gareth on top of him for a long time, then loosened his arms and shifted on the bed to a half-sitting position leaning his back to the headboard.

He pulled Gareth with him, pressed his head gently on his shoulder, wrapped his arm around him and kissed his hair.

 

“I saw you the other day”, Cristiano said. “You were out on the town, Emma pushed a stroller, you lifted Alba on your shoulders. That what you guys share is something that not everybody has.”

Gareth heard Cris swallow and wrapped his arm across his chest, hugging him tight.

Cris continued. “And it’s something I could never get if I tried to have you to myself, take you from her. It’s something I could only break.”

Cristiano looked straight ahead, his jaw tightened. His eyes looked so serious that Gareth supposed he was fighting back tears.

“Have you really thought about it?” Gareth asked.

“You think I haven’t?” Cristiano’s voice cracked, a tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek. Gareth instinctively swept it off with his thumb and kissed Cristiano’s chin.

Cristiano’s whole face crinkled and sobs shook his body. Gareth couldn’t watch it doing nothing.

He quickly rolled up and straddled Cristiano’s thighs. He forced his arms between Cristiano’s back and the headboard, pulled him sitting up, hugged him tight, pressed his head to his chest, rocked them from side to side, stroking his hair and kissing his hair, temples and forehead.

“Cris, Cris, Cris”, he whispered in the rhythm of cradling him. “Dear sweet Cris, don’t cry, don’t you cry dear.”

Gareth kept rocking Cris a long time until he felt his breath steadying, then loosened his hug and leaned back enough to lift Cristiano’s chin to meet his eyes.

“You’re too good for this world, you know that?” Gareth said with a small, encouraging smile on his whole face and used his fingers to move Cristiano’s chin up and down as if to make him nod in agreement. Cristiano smiled back and hugged him tight.

“So are you, Gareth”, he mumbled into Gareth’s chest.

 

Gareth climbed out of Cristiano’s lap, took the pillow lying on the bed and rolled down on his side, tucking the pillow under his head. Cris followed suit.

They laid on their side, facing each other, studying each other’s eyes; what they saw was something so familiar, so reassuring.

“I love you in so many ways”, Gareth said.

“I know. I love you too”, Cris answered.

Gareth had to close the gap between their faces and press a chaste kiss on Cristiano’s lips.

“It’s a good thing you’re selling this place”, he said returning back to his pillow.

“I know. We can’t keep seeing like this”, Cris said. “And I couldn’t keep it after we made it ours like we did. I’d hate to have some stupid student live in here trashing everything. It’s better to let it go completely and not know anything about it anymore.” He caressed Gareth’s cheek and neck with his hand.

“But there are beds in other places too, you know. Are you worried?” Gareth asked.

Cristiano looked steadily in his eyes. “No. I’m not worried about anything”, he said.

 

They kissed slowly, tentatively. It was just as good as ever, lips finding a common rhythm, tongues moving together.

Gareth moved his body closer, making Cristiano roll onto his back, pressing his chest on him, kissing him harder. Cristiano’s hands found their way on the back of his thighs, massaging them, tracing his muscles with his fingers. Palms of his hands rubbed Gareth’s skin heavily. “So hot and hard and strong, Gaz… no wonder you run so fast”, he said under his breath, voice almost as low as a whisper.

Gareth  shifted his position so that he got one of his knees between Cristiano’s, his thigh pressing tight between his, corkscrewing Cristiano’s hips to feel him as close as possible. He kept kissing him, bodies touching from chest to knees.

Cristiano pulled his hips down tighter, his hands gripped his thighs high up, just below his ass. It made their erect cocks press and rub together almost achingly hard.

“You’re the one moving fast, Cris”, Gareth hummed to his mouth, not really separating from the kiss, grinding his hips down with the subtle move Cristiano’s steely grip let him make.

“I just love you wanting me so much”, Cris answered, and Gareth loved him for saying that, because it sounded like the most egotistical thing someone could say but Cristiano said it in a way that he knew it wasn’t. It meant he knew Gareth well and wasn’t afraid to tell it.

“Yes I do want you”, Gareth panted in one fast breath before drowning his mouth in another heated kiss.

 

Cris rolled them over so that he was on top of Gareth and they laid diagonally on the bed. He extended his hand to rummage the drawers of the nightstand and exclaimed “Ha! Found it!” with a nearly squeezed-out tube of lube in his hand.

Gareth smiled at him. “It’s good your real estate agent didn’t. I love your enthusiasm over the smallest things”, he said.

“You’re no small thing”, Cris said and kissed him.

Gareth gladly let Cris take his hand to his ass, moaning as soon as he touched it close enough. Even as short a time as half a year ago he wouldn’t have dreamed of wanting something inside him so eagerly, which could have been a bit worrying but no, it wasn’t, not a bit.

“Oh yes, Cris, YES”, he said, voice rising to almost a shout when he felt a lubed finger gliding inside inside his ass teasingly slow at first but in the end a bit too fast to be really tender and nice, because the pace was just right. Then his cock was inside him and it was even better.

Cristiano pulled them up sitting on the bed, Gareth in his lap, his legs wrapped around him. He held him close, kept his movement small and slow, looked at him straight in the eye, his gaze deep, wondering, loving. Gareth kissed him, shifted his feet so he could support himself with them, moved up and down riding his lover until they collapsed back into each other’s arms, spent and warm.

“You’re not going to get a baby this way”, Gareth hummed and chuckled into Cristiano’s mouth over the next kiss.

“Then we have to try again”, Cris answered and nudged his nose with his own.

And they did. And the insides of Cristiano’s perfect round ass were even plusher and more heavenly than the first time. And Cristiano loved Gareth for loving him so much.

 

“Well, this is it, then?” Gareth asked, glancing around himself in the kitchen area like he looked at its cupboard doors the first time, maybe he did.

They had gathered their clothes that had been scattered here and there, got dressed, checked under the bed and around the floors that there was nothing personal left behind. The place would be cleaned before being put out for sale publicly, but no identifiable memorabilia should be left for the cleaners. Cristiano looked through the cupboards and bathroom drawers; everything was empty.

Cris closed Gareth to an embrace and rubbed his clean-shaven cheek to his beard. “I don’t know really. I’m not through with loving you. But this will have to stop. It would hurt my ego to be kept on the side by a married man”, he said.

Gareth hugged him tight. “I love you too. I will keep on loving you in so many ways.” He kissed Cristiano’s cheek. “And I think you’re too much for anybody to keep on the side. All I really want is to see you happy.”

“I am happy”, Cristiano said.

They stood there, silent, in a loose embrace.

 

Gareth broke the silence first. “Is your jet back from the shop yet?” he asked.

“Gareth!” Cristiano looked at him aghast, opening his mouth to say something more.

“I’m kidding, Cris, I’m kidding! We’re leaving it at that, really. Really.” he said and bowed his head to look reassuringly in Cristiano’s eyes.

“Good. Promise me to take care of your folks, Gareth.”

“You too, Cris.”

“Of course, Gareth. And can you keep a secret?”

“Yes.”

“Then keep it. Never tell her about us. Never.”

 

Gareth handed Cristiano the key and he locked the door.

“I will miss this”, Gareth said, looking around the long corridor.

“But you don’t have to miss me”, Cris said. “We have a match coming.”

“Yeah. Like you said, it’s always a new game. You’ll score us some goals, right?”

Cristiano grinned. “If I get good enough passes. But don’t come hugging me from behind. It would be too soon”, Cris said and made Gareth laugh out loud.

 

Cris drove Gareth back to his own car.

“If somebody spotted us running, let’s say we were rehearsing for a viral video campaign. I can sell the idea for some advertiser. We could be racing each other for a bag of crisps, a remote control or anything. Then they can ask people to send up their own videos of us”, Cristiano said in the car.

“Haha. It would sell billions”, Gareth agreed.

 

Back in the Valdebebas carpark there was still another thing that Gareth needed to do.

He tried to call Toni but got no answer. He tapped a text instead.

_Terrible to hear about your injury! Praying you get well soon. Sorry I didn’t ask how you were after the Leganés game._

No answer to that, either. Not that he expected any.

Gareth was in already in his car when his phone rang.

“Hi Gareth, it’s Toni. Thanks. I was texting you back but it got so long I called instead.”

“Hi, so nice of you to call. How are you now?”

“Getting better I guess but it will take long. Have to work on it. Look, no need for you to say you’re sorry. I’m sorry about that day. I was out of line.” Toni paused and Gareth was about to say there was nothing to worry about, when Toni continued.

“Whatever you guys do – okay, to be honest, I really hope DON’T do – is none of my business. I was hurting and worried about my foot, I guess I took it out on you so I didn’t have to think about myself. I’m sorry.”

Gareth took a deep breath; sometimes there was only so much goodness one could take in a day.

“Toni. You’re a good friend. No worries, mate.” he paused. “I mean, thanks for the reality check. I needed it. It’s all better now.”

Toni understood. Gareth knew he understood.

 

He couldn’t wait to get home, he couldn’t wait to get back on the pitch. There was always a new game, always something to achieve.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it then. How do you feel, was it all right?
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting sweeties! Wouldn't have done it this far without you.
> 
> \----  
> Hahahaa! You don't know how happy I am to have written this piece of dialogue before last night's Madrid Derby? (Saturday November 19 2016, Atlético 0-Real 3, all goals by Cristiano, Bale's GREAT assist for the last one)
> 
> "You’ll score us some goals, right?”
> 
> Cristiano grinned. “If I get good enough passes."
> 
> Them being in football love is the greatest kind of love I want them to be in, really. I love it when reality writes the best possible ending to a fic <3!!!


End file.
